


The Night Sky Filled With Light

by imogenbynight



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Bunker Fic, Case Fic, Dean's POV, Frustrated Dean, Horror, Human Castiel, Humor, M/M, Oops, POV Third Person Limited, Romance, Slow Build, eventual angel plot, post 8.23, this is getting to be long, trigger: gore, trigger: reference to suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-19
Updated: 2014-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-12 08:10:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 63,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/809302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imogenbynight/pseuds/imogenbynight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean stares at the lake for far too long before he realizes the angel who fell into it might have been Castiel.</p><p>(The first chapter was originally posted as a 2000 word one shot immediately after 8.23 aired--you may recognise the first scene, but it's all new after that!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One More Chance

Years ago, in a field in by the freeway, they watched the night sky fill with light.  
  
Sammy spun circles under the falling sparks, laughing as he stared up into starbursts that reflected gold in his eyes, and Dean breathed in the smell of gunpowder in the cool air. Tonight, the sky is bright again, but Sam isn't spinning. He's on the ground, in the dirt by the Impala, eyes squeezed shut and chest heaving as he struggles to catch his breath.

Tonight, the smell is not of fireworks, but of ashes; of burnt hair and feathers.  
  
Dean's stomach drops when he realizes what that means.

" _No, Cas_."

The sky keeps falling. Until an angel hits the smooth surface of the lake before them, sending up an arc of murky water, it almost feels like a dream. A nightmare. But the ground shakes with the impact, and it's real. It's real. Beside him, Sam jerks and drags his eyes open. He presses back against the side of the car, grasping at Dean as he turns his gaze to the sky.

"What's happening?" he asks, and Dean struggles to find his voice, because all he can think is it's Cas.

"Angels," he says instead, "they're falling."

Sam stares straight up.

"Did Cas--?"

Dean half shakes his head.

"I don't know where he is."

  
He looks out at the rippling water for far too long before it hits him that the angel that crashed into the lake might be Castiel, and then he's running, feet slamming against gravel and grass until he slides in the thick mud at the waters edge.  
  
The lake is cold, made murky by rising silt and slime that billows out in a dark cloud from the place where the angel plunged through. Dean doesn't notice the chill; just wades out until it's deep enough to dive, and then he's under, diving down until his hands hit the bottom.  
  
He gropes blindly in the water until his lungs start to burn, and then his fingers finally close around the shape of an ankle, slipping against rapidly cooling skin.  
  
With his last few seconds of oxygen, Dean wraps his arms tightly around the angel's torso and pushes off the lake's floor, swimming up until they breach the surface. He hears the sound of sirens in the distance. Sam is shouting for him.  
  
He gasps in the air, silt and water running into his eyes as he starts swimming toward the shore.  
  
It's not until he's out of the lake that he knows he isn't holding Castiel.  
  
It's another angel, one he's never met, and his skin is streaked with mud. Dean tries not to panic, tries to tell himself that Cas is still somewhere upstairs kicking Metatron's manipulative ass, but the lie falls flat, even in his own head.  
  
Wherever Castiel is, he's like this.  
  
Fallen.  
  
Dean lowers the nameless angel onto the grass and crouches beside him to press fingers to his throat, an ear to his chest. There's nothing.  
  
The chill of the air finally settles onto his wet skin, sinks deep into his bones as he looks up at Sam, wiping mud from his face with his soaked sleeve.  
  
"He's dead."

Whether it was the fall itself that killed him, or if he drowned before Dean got to him, Dean isn't sure.  
  
A year ago, he might have just thrown him back in the lake, but now...  
  
Most of the angels might have been dicks, but maybe this one was one of the good guys. Maybe he was like Samandriel. Like Anna or Balthazar. Hell, even Gabriel had been half decent in the end.

Maybe he was like Cas.  
  
Dean takes in a breath.  
  
He pulls lakeweed from where its tangled in the angel's hair, cleans the silt from the corners of his vacant eyes.

"I'm gonna bury him," Dean says, mainly to himself. To his relief Sam doesn't ask why. He just nods, jaw tight, and Dean looks him over. "You okay?"  
  
"Just tired.”  
  
"Go. Sit down. I'll try to be quick."

Sam nods again and makes his way back to the car, sinking down into the passenger seat as Dean takes an old pair of jeans and a t-shirt out of the trunk, stripping off his wet clothes. While he dresses, he argues with himself about whether or not this is a waste of time.  
  
The sky had been full of angels, thousands of them falling; hundreds visible even from this one tiny patch of earth in Southern Nebraska. He knows there's a mess waiting to be cleaned up.  
  
But it's too much right now. He can't think about it, can't deal with it.  
  
It's too big, and all he can think about is the fact that this is one of Castiel's brothers and that he deserves better than to spend eternity where he landed, to bloat at the bottom of the lake until he bursts and dissolves into nothing.  
  
He refuses to admit the underlying reason; that if Castiel has met a similar fate, if he is laying at the bottom of some river, some lake, some ocean, somewhere he can never hope to reach, then this--burying his brother--is as close as Dean will get to saying goodbye.  
  
Bitterly, he thinks he should be used to losing Castiel by now. He's not.  
  
He grabs a shovel. With heavy limbs he circles the church twice before settling on a patch of soft earth below a walnut sapling on the lake side.  
He digs, digs, digs, and keeps digging even when his shoulder starts to burn with the strain, when the rough wooden handle of the old shovel leaves splinters in his palm, when sweat runs down his still-damp neck, under the collar of his t-shirt.  
  
He keeps digging until the full-body ache is enough to almost--almost--drown out the one in his chest.  
  
It's two hours before the hole is deep enough, and once the angel has been given a hunter's funeral, the smoke curling pale fingers up into the sky, Dean heads back to the car.

“What about Crowley?” Sam asks him when he slips into the drivers seat, and Dean falters. He'd forgotten Crowley was even there.  
  
“Right,” he says, pushing his door back open, “you still got the knife?”  
  
“We can't kill him, Dean.”  
  
“Why the hell not?”  
  
“He's practically cured. Besides, he might know something.”

Sam's eyes are sinking closed again, still exhausted, and Dean sighs before heading into the church for the ex-King of Hell.  
  
He's almost glad for the inconvenience that Crowley's presence creates, because it's another distraction, and he's got to keep his mind occupied. He tells himself that if he keeps focused on something, on anything, he won't have to think about what's missing from this picture. Who's missing.  
  
But it's just another lie. He can't _stop_ thinking about it.  
  
Crowley doesn't look up when Dean walks in, and Dean takes hold of his shoulder to pull him up from the chair and lead him outside. He gets in the back seat with no struggle, sits with his hands bound together and in his lap, staring slack-jawed and damp-eyed out the window.  
  
Save for Crowley's occasional sobs, the drive is silent, the atmosphere heavy. Sam sleeps on and off, his forehead leaning against the window.  
  
As much as Dean tries to keep his eyes on the road, they keep flicking up to the image of Crowley's tear-streaked face in the rear-view.  
  
He doubts they'll be getting anything useful out of him any time soon. But, he thinks, that's a problem for another day.  
  
Right now, he just hopes Kevin might be able to find something on the tablet that will help them find Castiel. The thought that he could have fallen somewhere like the angel he'd buried makes Dean's mouth go dry.  
  
He just needs one more chance.  
  
One more chance to show Castiel how damn much he needs him; _how_ he needs him, because no matter how many times he's said it, Castiel just doesn't seem to get that it isn't just for his powers.  
  
But he knows he's had one more chance at least three times now. He keeps asking for it, silently praying for it every time Castiel disappears, and then each time he comes back, Dean panics, backs out, convinces himself that what he feels is just friendship magnified by loss because that's easier than saying it aloud.

* * *

  
They're two miles from the bunker when Dean sees him, feet-dragging slow in a daze on the roadside.  
  
His shoes are caked with mud. Grass seeds stick to his trouser legs, wet to the knee, and he doesn't even flinch at the sound of tires screaming on the asphalt behind him.  
  
Dean's out of the car and running, slipping on soft earth that slopes down to the tree line before he's even fully aware of what he's seeing. Pure adrenaline drives his legs like pistons, heart pounding hard.  
  
The Impala rolls forward. Sam has to pull the handbrake on.

"Cas?” Dean calls out, voice catching, breathless, because he'd been sure, until now, he'd been _sure_ that Castiel was lost.

But somehow, beyond all reason, against all odds, he's here. Dean can't seem to remember how to breathe.

“Cas,” he repeats, wavering, terrified that he's only going to disappear again, that he isn't himself, “Castiel.”

Castiel takes a few more steps before the sound of Dean's voice seems to register, and even then he's like a train slowly grinding to a halt, slowly, slowly, and with a jolt. When he turns, he looks spooked and cloudy-eyed, and something in his stance says cornered animal. The smell of burned rubber lingers in the air, warm and acrid, and it settles thick in Dean's lungs like tar. Even without it, he's sure he'd feel sick.

“It's me,” Dean raises his hands, palms facing out in placation as he steps closer to look him over, “are you okay?”

Castiel doesn't answer, just blinks against the bright of the Impala's headlights. They reflect off his sweat-slick forehead where his hair is dark and curled with damp. He tilts his head slightly. His gaze never quite settles on Dean, but he still stares; his mouth half open, eyes unfocused and distant. Dean's seen this look before, on the faces of soldiers returned from war in body but not in spirit. He's seen it on the faces of hunters who've lost everything too many times and retreated into themselves to sit before garden-facing windows in medically recommended retirement for the rest of their years.  
  
He's seen this look on Castiel's face after he'd taken on Sam's memories of Hell.  
  
He sways a little, and Dean reaches out to steady him, hand closing tight on his arm. Castiel glances down at it in confusion. When he finally speaks it's to Dean's tense fingers, as though looking back up is an effort he can't quite manage.

“Dean,” he says, and relief melts into Dean's bones that he at least knows him, that his memory is intact, “the angels, they... we all... they...”

  
He trails off, mouth working silently. Though the angels stopped falling hours ago, Castiel looks as though he still sees them hitting the atmosphere, bursting bright through cloud engulfed in flame, trailing ash and light and fury in their wake.

“It's over, Cas,” Dean tells him, squeezing his arm, “you're alright.”

“No,” he says, his hand rising to his throat as he swallows, voice dropping to almost a whisper, “I'm--he took it from me.”

Dean's mouth goes dry.  
  
“Your grace?”

Castiel nods, still looking down.

"He cut it out.”

He almost looks ashamed; as if he's expecting Dean to berate him for trusting Metatron in the first place. Dean hates himself a little more than usual at the knowledge that it wouldn't be entirely out of character for him to do it.

“So you're...?”

The word human catches in his throat, but Castiel still seems to hear it.

“Yes.”

Castiel's fingers twitch against his Adams apple, and Dean lets out a long breath. Thinks, _at least he's alive_ , but doesn't say it aloud for fear that Castiel doesn't agree.

“The others are...” Castiel's head is shaking, his tongue darting out over his lips as he frowns, breath coming shorter, harsher, sentences tangling before he can get them out, “they fell, they... he cast them out. I don't know if they're still— I don't... I can't hear them, Dean, I—”

His fingers clench, nails pressing in against the skin of his throat, and Dean reaches up to pull them away.

“Hey. Hey, c'mon Cas, it's alright,” he presses his palm flat against the center of Castiel's chest to ground him, tilting his face down to catch his eye, “you're safe.”

After a few seconds, Castiel's breathing slows, evens out, and Dean slips an arm around his shoulders to lead him back to the car.

“We'll figure out the rest at home, okay?”

Castiel makes no response, but he follows. Ahead of them, Sam is leaning on the open passenger door, still too unsteady on his feet to go much further. They're about fifteen feet away when Castiel freezes, his eyes wide and fixed on movement in the car. He grabs at Dean's wrist on his shoulder, terrified, and it takes Dean an embarrassingly long time to figure out the problem. In his relief at finding Castiel, he'd completely forgotten about the King of Hell, cuffed and crying in the back seat.

“Sam was three-quarters done curing him when I got there,” he explains, “we didn't know what to do with him.”

That isn't entirely true; Dean has a lot of ideas about what to do with him—most of which end with five pounds of salt, a gallon of gasoline and a book of matches—but Dean had seen no point in arguing with his brother when he already looked ready to drop. Now he's starting to wish he'd put his foot down.

“We're gonna keep him in the dungeon until we figure something out.”

Castiel doesn't move, and Dean entertains the idea of dragging Crowley out of the car and leaving him to rot on the roadside. It's not an option, though. Not really.

“He's still in cuffs,” he reasons, knowing it probably won't help, “been sobbing like a baby the whole drive. He's harmless.”

Castiel glances back over his shoulder in the direction he'd been walking and drops Dean's wrist.

“I'll walk.”

 “We'll put him in the trunk.”

 “I'll walk,” he repeats, pulling free of Dean's arm, his feet crunching loud in the gravel as he moves away.

 “Cas—”

Dean lets out a sigh, watching him go, before heading back over to Sam, who raises his hands in question.

“Where's he going?”  
  
“He saw Crowley,” Dean explains.

 “Did he tell you what happened?”

Watching Castiel's retreating back, Dean lowers his voice.

“Metatron. The dick took Cas' grace, hit Heaven's eject button.”

Sam huffs out a low breath, pushing his hair back out of his face.

“Is he okay?”  
  
“You think you're good to drive?” Dean asks, and it's an answer even if it isn't, “I don't want to leave him out here.”  
  
“Yeah, it's cool,” closing the door, Sam slowly makes his way around to the drivers side, “Kevin can help me with Crowley, and I'll come back for you.”

Dean waves a hand, dismissive.

“It's not that far. You get some rest, okay? Just leave the door unlocked.”

Sam raises his eyebrows, one hand on the roof.

“Nothing nasty's getting past all that warding,” Dean points out, “and anyone else tries to bust in, they're gonna high-tail it outta there the second they see the war room.”  
  
“Good point,” Sam says, slipping behind the wheel and glancing back at Crowley, practically comatose in the back seat, “I guess I'll see you there.”

Dean drums his knuckles over the hood before Sam pulls back onto the road, then turns to follow Castiel. He's barely made any ground, and five seconds of jogging has Dean back beside him. Castiel glances up in confusion, then looks ahead where the Impala's tail lights are disappearing around a bend as if he doesn't understand why Dean's bothering to walk with him.  
  
Dean can't tell what hurts worse; that Castiel seems to think he doesn't care, or that it's his fault that he feels that way. This is that one more chance you wanted, he thinks to himself, and swallows hard around the words that catch in his throat.  
  
Just spit it out, he thinks.

“It's only a couple miles,” Dean says, tucking his hands into his pockets.

Castiel doesn't reply, and they don't talk again the rest of the walk.  
  
Ordinarily, silences with Castiel don't feel awkward at all. Tonight, though, the quiet settles uncomfortably over them, creeps into every pore of Dean's skin, his throat, his lungs like the burnt rubber of the Impala's tires.  
They press on, shuffling slow enough that the thirty minute walk takes closer to an hour. Once in a while, Castiel's balance falters, and Dean steadies him before taking his hand away. Every step seems to press the quiet deeper until Dean feels it closing in on him like a vise. He wants to help. There's a lot he'd wanted to say back when he thought Castiel would be locking himself upstairs, things that he's sure would have made it clear that he does care, that he cares too much, so much that it's love, but he couldn't quite manage to verbalize it. Honestly, he isn't sure he ever will.  
  
Whenever he's tried to sort it out into words he can say, words that are honest but don't give the true extent of his feelings away, they still end up rambling and uncomfortably poetic.  
  
His head is a mess. His heart's not much better.  
  
When the bunker door is finally in sight, lit by the sinking moon, he stops.

“Cas, wait,” he says, and Castiel turns to look at him for the first time since they started.

There's something calmer in him now. His eyes are clearer, his muscles less taut, and Dean watches him for too long before he remembers that he's waiting, expecting Dean to have a reason for stopping him. He scrambles for words.  
  
 _Sorry your whole family got kicked out of Heaven_ , is too blunt.  
  
 _I'm just glad I didn't lose you_ , is too selfish.  
  
 _You've always been more than your grace_ , is getting too far into that poetic place again.  
  
So instead, he steps forward and pulls him into a hug, hoping it will be enough. Hoping that Castiel will understand everything he's putting into it, all the things that he wants to say but shouldn't--but the hug is as one-sided as the one by the river in Purgatory.  
  
Castiel's arms remain limp by his sides, and Dean finds himself wondering if maybe it wasn't, as he'd thought, the otherness of being an Angel that stopped Castiel from responding last time, but just that he doesn't have the capacity for affection. That his care for Dean is entirely detached in nature; that while Dean sees him as his best friend, his family—his everything outside of Sam—Castiel sees him as nothing more than, as he'd put it all those years ago, the only one who'll help him. That he was only walking toward the bunker tonight because he had no place else to go. That maybe, even now, even human, he will remain distant, aloof; as unreachable as ever.  
  
Dean steps back, letting Castiel go, and looks down at the ground, clamping his mouth shut and silently calling himself an asshole.  
  
Dude just got his grace ripped out, he thinks, what do you expect?

“Listen, Cas,” he says, “I, uh...”

There's a bird nearby, flapping noisily in the underbrush, and he glares in it's general direction while he thinks. Castiel waits, expectant. Dean clears his throat, determined to get his point across, “you're not alone.”  
The bird squawks, loud, launching into the air and kicking up leaves.  
  
Dean clears his throat again.

“I mean... you've got me,” he says, knowing it's not enough, could never be enough, “us, I mean. Sam and me. We're... you know. Here. For you.”

“Thank you,” Castiel murmurs, but it sounds mechanical, an ingrained response more than a conscious one.

When Dean doesn't know what else to say, he leads him inside.  
  
The bunker is warm, light, and Dean finds himself reaching out to help Castiel off the bottom step. He isn't sure why; it's not as though he has any physical injuries, after all, and though he's a little unsteady he's managed to walk this whole way, but still Castiel takes his offered hand and Dean smiles at him, hoping it doesn't look as pitiful as it feels.  
  
He tries to let go once they're both off the staircase, but Castiel's grip is tight, almost painfully so, and Dean can't help but wonder how he can cling so desperately to his hand when a hug went completely ignored.  
  
He stares down at their linked fingers, Castiel's warm hand fitted together with his, and tries not to like it so much. It's not the time.

“You tired?”

Castiel considers the question for a long moment.

“I think so.”

“Okay. That we can deal with.”

Dean gives his hand a brief squeeze before he leads him down the hall, toward the room they'd left him to heal in after the ordeal with the Tablet. He just barely contains his sigh of relief that Sam and Kevin are nowhere to be seen.  
  
It might be nice, might be helpful, but he's worried that he looks too content to have Castiel's hand in his. Castiel might be too clueless to notice but if Sam were to see he'd know the truth in seconds, and Dean can't deal with that.  
  
As long as he keeps what he feels to himself, he can pretend it isn't real, and if it isn't real he can convince himself that it doesn't hurt. It's complete bullshit, obviously, but he's already got a degree in denial, and he's gonna get the doctorate if it kills him.  
  
Once they reach his room, Castiel reluctantly lets go. Dean misses the warmth immediately.  
  
He leaves him sitting quietly on the edge of the army-issue cot while he heads down the hall to rummage through his drawers for a change of clothes. When he comes back, Castiel doesn't look like he's moved an inch, yet his coat and jacket are off, draped carefully over the end of the thin mattress. In just his shirt he looks incredibly small for a man of nearly six feet.  
  
For a few seconds, Dean just stares at him, unable to move.

"I'm really glad you're here, Cas." he says eventually.

"I'm glad, too," Castiel murmurs in reply, his mouth barely moving, eyes fixed on his hands.

If his response wasn't an echo of Dean's own words, Dean would think he hadn't even noticed he was there. He looks lost, dazed. Diminished.  
Hesitating, Dean's fingers close around the doorknob. The metal is cold. He thinks of the lake. The slippery skin of the angel he buried.

“I thought you were—” Dean cuts himself off, shakes his head and tries to smile, “but you're here. You're alive.”

 _One more chance_ , he thinks.  
  
He wants to cross the room. Wants to feel the rise and fall of Castiel's chest beneath his hands. Wants to _know_ , to feel how alive he is. He doesn't. Can't. Castiel won't even look at him.

"I am," Castiel says after a time, as if it were a burden, a weighty thing that hurt, and Dean feels it like a punch in the gut, "alive."

When he finally lifts his head, his eyes are wet.  
  
Dean feels sick. He moves forward slowly, afraid to make any sudden movements when Castiel is so tense, but needing to be there.  
  
Needing to be closer, needing to help, somehow.  
  
He hates how hard this is.  
  
Castiel stares up at him, his hands twitching, and opens his mouth to speak. No sound comes out.  
  
He squeezes his eyes closed, throat working frantically as if he's drowning, and Dean sinks onto his knees on the floor before him.

"It's gonna be okay, Cas," he says, reaching up to pull Castiel's tense fingers away from where they have risen again to clutch at his throat, "You're safe."

His hands are warm in Dean's, and he smooths his thumbs over them, shuffling forward to wind his arms around him.

"You're home," he says against his shoulder.

"I know," Castiel replies, but his voice wavers, “but my brothers. My sisters. They—”

Dean feels the sob that rocks through Castiel's chest, the sudden clutch of hands at his back, too tight, crushing him, and he squeezes right back.  
  
His eyes are pressed shut, hard against Castiel's shaking shoulder, and for a very long time, there in the quiet, in the dark, they breathe together. When the trembling stops, Dean pulls back, squeezing his arm briefly before heading back to pick up the clothes he'd brought. Castiel takes them wordlessly.

“Will you be alright?”

Castiel looks up at him, fingers worrying at a loose thread on the track pants resting on his lap.

“Eventually,” he says, making an attempt at a smile that looks more painful than anything else, and if he weren't such a goddamn coward, Dean would hug him again.

Instead he just drums his fingers on the door frame. It feels wrong to leave, but he's got no idea what else he's meant to do. Doesn't know if he should offer to stay; offer to watch over him the way Castiel always tried to do for him despite his protests. There's no protocol for this.

“Okay. Well if you need anything...” he gestures down the hall, vaguely in the direction of his room, and waits for Castiel to nod before he pulls the door shut.

He walks slowly down the hall, stopping on his way to check on Sam—fast asleep and snoring—and Kevin—wide awake and seething—before going to bed.

He sleeps fitfully through the night, tossing and turning, jerking awake with every cough that echoes out of Sam's room and eventually gives up at eight in the morning.  
  
The next four hours are spent at the table in the library, staring at Kevin's translations as if they might suddenly give him some insight into how to get Castiel's grace back, even as a part of himself that he's labeled as a downright bastard insists that it's better this way. Because whether or not he wants to admit it, he's wanted this for years. Perhaps not in the exact way it's been delivered, but he's wanted it. Wished more than once that Castiel could just be a guy, another hunter, a civilian even, someone who couldn't just flap away at a moments notice.  
  
Someone within reach.  
  
Back at the bar, he'd let himself hope that Castiel might tell him he was planning to remain on Earth after shutting the gates. It was a selfish hope, and he knew it. That knowledge was the only thing that stopped him from offering it up as an option.  
  
The words _you could stay_ had been heavy on his tongue, and he'd taken a drink, swallowed the words down with it and forced himself to be strong enough to let go.  
  
Now, he's got what he wanted, and he doesn't want it. Not like this. Not with Castiel so hurt, so broken and betrayed.  
  
So he reads everything Kevin has managed to translate. Then reads it again and again until his eyes ache. There's nothing, of course. Wouldn't be his luck otherwise.  
  
He rubs at his stiff neck, glancing at the time—a little after noon—before pushing himself to his feet.  
  
When he gets to Sam's room, he can still hear snoring through the closed door. He's relieved at the sound; over the past few months, Sam's been sleeping less and less, so the fact that he's finally lasted a full night is a good sign that the trial sickness has begun to release him.  
  
Kevin doesn't respond to his knocks, and he assumes the prophet is either ignoring him because of the whole not-shutting-Hell-or-killing-Crowley situation, or as tired as Sam. Either way, Dean leaves him to it, making his way to Castiel's room. Once he's at the door, he finds himself hesitant to go any further, wary of what he's going to find. When he finally knocks, he hears the creak of a mattress in reply, then nothing. He leans forward until his forehead is resting against the door and forces himself to speak.

“You awake, Cas?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Can I come in?”

  
There's a pause, a shuffling of blankets, a click.

 “Yes.”

Dean pushes the door open. Castiel is laying flat on his back, the shadeless lamp at his bedside dim and largely ineffective, and he turns his head on the pillow to look at Dean. He blinks slowly, mouth turned down at the sides. Dean takes in his matted hair, his pillow-creased cheek, and aches.  
  
Everything feels wrong.  
  
He takes a careful step into the room. It's bare and sparsely furnished, and absently Dean thinks he'll need to bring some color in here; some bookshelves, maybe, or a rug for the floor. Something to make it a little less bleak, a little brighter.

“How are you feeling?”

 “Like crap,” Castiel replies, and if he didn't look so miserable, Dean might have laughed at the audible quotation marks in his tone, “but I'll live.”  
  
“You want to talk about it?”

 “Not particularly.”

It's no wonder really, considering who he's learned his human coping mechanisms from, and Dean wishes he could have set a better example over the years.

“Well, if you change your mind—”

 “I think I'd rather go back to sleep, if that's okay.”

He's already rolled over, facing the wall, and Dean tells himself not to take it personally. He'll come around. He's been through a lot.

“Yeah, of course.”

Dean pulls the door closed.  
  
The hallway is silent, cold, and for too long Dean stands there with his hand still on the doorknob feeling utterly lost. Kevin walks past ten minutes later on his way to the bathroom, his presence jerking Dean back to reality. Unlike last night, he's civil.

“How is he?” he asks, tilting his sleep-mussed head toward Castiel's door, and Dean just shakes his head.

Kevin, apparently having trained at the same empathy school as Sam, reaches up to pat Dean on the shoulder before continuing down the hall. The bathroom door closes with a heavy clunk, and Dean heads back to the kitchen to make more coffee.  
  
In the hour that follows, Dean fills Kevin in on everything he had been unwilling to listen to last night. He's still not happy—not even a little—but he's more understanding at least, and he says he'll help however he can.  
  
They visit every news site they can think of. To their intense relief, there's been no mass influx of people in hospitals, no reports of people's family members suddenly claiming to be angels. Still, Dean doesn't trust any of it.

“It seems too neat,” he tells Kevin.  
  
“You're probably right.”  
  
“I buried one of them last night,” Dean says, clicking on another news story, “the vessel had to have been _someone_.”  
  
“Could we ask Castiel?”

Dean looks over his shoulder toward the hall, expression tight.

 “Not yet. He's... not yet.”

The fireworks display of the previous night is being widely reported as a freak meteor shower, leaving astronomers the world over baffled and attempting to answer the questions of news reporters with no explanation for how it wasn't predicted, and the photos and home videos online are all so blown out by burning grace that it's impossible to see much of anything. The few that do seem angel-shaped have comment sections overflowing with people shouting _hoax_!

“I guess most of them survived enough to walk away before anyone could see them,” Kevin says, glancing up at him, “any idea if that's a good thing?”  
  
“Depends.”  
  
“On what?”

Leaning back in his seat, Dean rubs his hand over his jaw.

“Whether they're on our side or not.”

When Sam emerges from his room in the late afternoon, hair fluffed out so far that Dean almost wants to pin him down so Kevin can go at him with a pair of clippers, his face has returned to a healthier color.

“You look better,” Kevin says, looking at him over his laptop screen and pushing out the opposite chair with his foot.  
  
“I feel better,” Sam says through a yawn as he sits down, “haven't slept that well in months. Cas doing okay?”  
  
“Still sleeping,” Dean tells him, and that seems to be answer enough.

They fill Sam in on what they've found, and he decides to head downstairs to question Crowley, despite Dean's insistence that he wait until he's firing on all cylinders. He returns shortly after, expression grim.

“What did he say?”  
  
“I have no idea. He's crying so hard I couldn't even understand him.”

“Awesome.”

Castiel doesn't leave his room until close to ten in the evening. Dean, slouching back in one of the library armchairs, jolts up as soon as he hears the distant click of his door, the drag of bare feet down the hall. By the time he gets to the end of the hallway, all he sees is a flash of Castiel's heel disappearing through the bathroom door before it swings closed. A few seconds later there's a flush followed by the whine of the shower pipes. Sam watches Dean from the table.

“Well that's good news at least,” he says, and Dean looks back at him.  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
“We don't need to teach him how to use the bathroom.”

He comes to the library soon after, damp around the collar of his borrowed t-shirt, face too pink and ears practically red.

“Might want to go easy on the hot water there, Cas,” Dean tells him, getting up to bring him some of the pizza they'd had for dinner.

“Okay.”

He eats it in silence, sitting rigid at the table, and as soon as he's done he returns to his room without so much as a goodnight. Dean stares after him, trying to decide if he should follow.

“Cas is tough, Dean,” Sam tells him, as if he can read his mind, and Dean rolls his eyes.  
  
“I know that.”  
  
“He'll be fine. He'll come to us when he's ready.”

“Sam's right,” Kevin adds, eating all the olives off the last slice of pizza, “he wouldn't be here otherwise.”

In Dean's opinion, neither of them know what the hell they're talking about, but he keeps his mouth shut and takes their advice.

* * *

  
The next day, Sam's coughing has all but stopped. Dean walks in to find him with Kevin, eating breakfast in the library. He gives him a once over before declaring that he's well enough to go outside if he wants to.

“Didn't need your permission,” Sam tells him.  
  
“Sure you did.”

Sam rolls his eyes, swatting Dean's hand away from the coffee he's trying to steal.

“Kevin made a whole pot,” he says, raising his mug to his lips, “get your own.”

Dean does, and when he comes back, Sam looks up at him.

“So, what do you want to do about Crowley?”

Sam's spoon clinks against the sides of his bowl as he chases the last Cheerio through the milk, and if casually talking about what to do with the ex-demon king currently chained up in the basement while eating oat-based cereal isn't a perfect example of how ridiculous their lives are, Dean doesn't know what is. He fixes Sam with a look as he sits down.

“You know what I want to do about Crowley.”

Kevin, in the seat beside Dean with a giant mug obscuring half his face, makes a noise of agreement, and Sam shakes his head as if they're the unreasonable ones.

“Other than that.”

Leaning back in his chair, Dean rubs a hand roughly over his eyes.

“He's pretty damn low on my list of priorities right now, Sam.”

“So, what's the plan, then?” Sam asks, and Dean shrugs from across the table.

He may have said the words _list of priorities_ , but he doesn't really have one beyond making sure everyone is okay again. And he sure as hell doesn't have anything close to a plan. Sam's waiting, though, and he thinks on his toes.

“The angels all seem to have completely dropped off the radar, and the demons won't know what to do with themselves for a while with Crowley out of the picture,” he says, and Sam and Kevin both nod, “So I think we should just, y'know... lay low. Take a bit of time off while you get better and Cas... adjusts.”  
  
“Time off?” Sam has a doubtful look in his eyes.  
  
“I think we've all earned it,” Dean tells him.  
  
“No argument there.”

Even so, they both spend the afternoon with Kevin in the war room, getting a full run down of everything that the alarm system had done when the angels fell. The need to do something is just too strong, it always has been, and downtime isn't a luxury they're used to.  
  
Near seven, Dean leaves them to it, making his way to Castiel's room to see if he's awake. If he is, he's pretending not to be, and Dean stands in the doorway for a little too long, waiting.

“Cas?” he tries eventually, and sees the way his shoulders tense slightly in response to his name.

 _Faking, then_ , Dean thinks.  
  
“We're gonna have dinner soon. Be nice if you'd come out.”

 “Okay,” comes the muffled reply, and Dean nods though Castiel can't see him.

On his way back to the library, he hears Crowley howling from the dungeon and figures taking a look at him won't hurt. He finds the former king sobbing, pressed in on himself in the corner of the dark room, begging for light, for warmth, for help, and regrets coming downstairs.  
  
Crowley's a complete mess, but as Dean's fetching him a worn blanket and replacing the single bulb in the ceiling, more to shut him up than anything else, he thinks it would be easier if Cas was like this, too. Shouting he can handle. It's the silence that worries him.  
  
To Dean's relief, Castiel does come out of his room for dinner—but he just shuffles around the bunker, sits at the table to eat what gets put in front of him in silence before going back to bed. It's not much, but it's something, and Dean's willing to take what he can get.

* * *

 **  
**On Monday, Dean has already checked up on Castiel six times by noon. As he approaches the door to bring the days total to seven, Sam stops him.

“Leave him,” he says quietly, a hand on Dean's arm, “don't push.”  
  
“He can't just stay in there forever, Sam.”  
  
“Agreed. But constantly checking up on him isn't helping.”

“It can't hurt,” Dean says stubbornly, and Sam's brow crinkles.

Dean hates that look. It's the kind of sympathetic frown that says _your heart's in the right place but you're being irrational_ , and it's one of many annoying expressions that his brother is capable of.

“Look, I know you're worried,” Sam says gently, and Dean thinks _I knew it was a goddamn pity face_ , “I am, too. But we've gotta give him time. He's still in there at the end of the week? Fine. I'll help you drag him out myself. Just... be patient, okay?”

Dean doesn't say anything else; just stares down the hall toward the closed door.

“Dean?”

He huffs out a breath and pulls his arm free.

“Yeah, okay,” he turns, heading back toward the library, “a couple more days.”

Much to Sam's irritation, late that afternoon, Dean catches Castiel as he walks from the bathroom back to his self-imposed solitary confinement.

“Cas, wait,” he says, stepping between him and the door.

Crossing his arms over his chest, Castiel braces as if expecting anger, and Dean tries to relax his shoulders, to look less threatening.

“I know you don't want to talk about it... but we need to know."

Castiel nods for Dean to go on.

"The other angels--are they human now, too?”

“I don't think so,” Castiel says, slowly, uncertain, “I'm... Metatron cut out my grace to make me human. The others were cast out of Heaven as Lucifer was cast out.”  
  
"But they have vessels," Dean says, hesitant, "at least, the one I found did."  
  
"You found--who is it?" Castiel is wide eyed, looking up the hallway as if expecting one of his brothers or sisters to walk down it, "Are they here?"

Dean flinches inwardly, wishing he hadn't brought it up.

"No--he's... I don't know who it was. He was... he landed in the lake by the church where we had Crowley. I dove in for him, but he... I was too late."  
  
"Oh."

Castiel slumps back against the wall, gaze dropping to the floor. After a moment he goes on to answer Dean's earlier question, his voice mechanical.

 "If they'd already taken vessels, they would have fallen with them. Permission only needs to be given once. Unless it's expressly revoked, it's basically permanent."  
  
"Did many have vessels?"  
  
"There weren't many angels left after..." he gulps, shaking his head as if to clear it, "there were perhaps fifteen hundred in total. Of them, around a third had vessels. Those who didn't will have fallen as Anna did. Most will be born as new souls, but some may just drift in the ether."

 “So there's about five hundred not-quite angels running around. Should we be worried?”

 “I doubt they'll harm anyone, if that's what you mean. It's them I'm concerned about.”

 "We can try and find them if you want. Help them."

 "How?"

  _Good question_ , Dean thinks, realizing he hadn't quite thought that far ahead. He fixes a confident smile on his face anyway.

 "We'll think of something. You wanna come out to the library?”

 “I... no. I'll just--” he glances toward the door of his room, "I'm not--I should go back."

With an ache in his chest, Dean realizes that Castiel is punishing himself. It's like Purgatory all over again; he's so convinced that he needs to do penance that he's not allowing himself any kind of comfort.

 "This isn't your fault, Cas, not really. You get that, right? You were manipulated. This shitstorm of a situation is on Metatron; not you."

 Castiel nods, though his eyes are distant, and Dean knows he doesn't believe him.

“You want some company?” Dean offers, though he knows the answer before he hears it.

Briefly, Castiel's eyes light up, but he looks away, shaking his head.

 “No. Thank you."

 “Aren't you bored?” Dean asks him, sure there must be some combination of words that will get a different response, “you want something to read?”  
  
“I don't think so.”

 “How about Sam's laptop? He won't mind.”

 “What would I do with that?”  
  
“I don't know. Look stuff up.”

Castiel looks ready to turn down the offer again, and Dean deflates. When Castiel speaks though, his veneer of disinterest is beginning to crack.

“I suppose it might be useful,” he says carefully, “I can research... being human.”

Dean wants to tell him he doesn't need a computer for that; he and Sam and Kevin are all right there, ready and willing to help him. But he doesn't. He just smiles, squeezing Castiel's shoulder because at least he's willing to try this.

“Awesome. I'll bring it in, okay?”

 “Okay.”

 

* * *

 **  
**Over lunch the next day, Sam commandeers Kevin's computer and types up a mass email to fill in all the hunters they still know on what happened. There's not much intel to give, and there hasn't exactly been any fallout yet, but halfway through the morning he'd decided it was probably a good idea to share what they could, just in case. Dean had agreed, on the condition that he skim over the parts about Castiel.

The last thing they need is for someone to decide it's his fault and storm their door down.

Barely five minutes after he hits send, Sam's cell rings. He answers on speaker, and Charlie doesn't even say hello.

“Why in the hell did you jerks take so long to tell me you're alive?”

The words are angry, but her voice is shaking, wobbling as if she's on the verge of tears, and Dean grimaces.

“We were preoccupied,” Sam tells her, “sorry.”  
  
“I was going to call you today,” Dean adds, though in truth he's been too worried about Castiel to have even thought about much else.

The look Sam gives him suggests he's well aware of that fact, and Dean mouths _shut up_. Sam just shakes his head. On the other end of the line, Charlie takes a few deep breaths.

“Are you both okay?”  
  
“Better than before,” Sam says.  
  
“Good,” there's a dull thud, as though Charlie's fallen back against a sofa or a mattress, “I was scared to call in case you didn't answer."  
  
"We're fine," Dean assures her, "promise. Are you okay?"  
  
"Yeah... I was driving when it happened. One of them hit my car.”  
  
“Jesus, are you—?”  
  
“I'm fine, just... God, it was blinding, and when I got out there was nothing there. I mean, there's a pretty big dent, but whoever it was ran off before I could get a look at them,” she pauses for a second before going on, slightly hesitant, “so... did you... did you guys ever find Castiel?”

"Yeah."

She sighs in relief, despite never having met him.

“Is he there?”  
  
“Here and human. He's still sleeping it off.”

There's a brief pause, and then she launches right into mission mode.

“Okay. Seeing as he's a real boy now, he's gonna need a background,” she says, half-grunting as she pushes up from wherever she'd collapsed, “and I can put together a better one than you guys. No offense.”

"Thanks, Charlie," Sam grins down at the phone.

“We owe you,” Dean says.  
  
“There's some stuff I need to take care of in Kansas next week... If there's room for one more in your man-cave, I could stop by, sort out Castiel's new identity while I'm there?”  
  
"Sounds good," Sam says.  
  
"I'll pay you in pancakes," Dean tells her.  
  
"Stop trying to get into my pants, Dean," Charlie says sternly, "I'll text you when I leave Topeka."

All day, Sam's phone rings. By evening he slumps into one of the chairs in the library, exhausted from repeating the same details over and over for hours. His eyes sink closed and he keeps waking himself up with snores.  
  
Dean is about to tell him to just go to bed when his eyes snap open and he leaps up out of his seat.

"Everything okay, Sammy?"

Sam makes no reply--just makes a beeline for his laptop. He clicks a few times, then unsatisfied by what he sees on the screen, digs his cell out of his pocket.

"Sam?"  
  
"What's going on?" Kevin asks warily from the doorway, a giant bowl of popcorn in his hands, "is it the end of the world again?"

Sam finally looks up, dumping his cell on the table.

"When was the last time you saw Garth?”  
  
“A couple of days before Crowley got me,” Kevin says slowly, “Why?"  
  
"He's the only one who hasn't responded to my email."  
  
"When did you guys speak to him?”

Sam shakes his head, trying to remember, but Dean pipes up immediately.

“April first. He tried to convince me that he'd caught an alien. Said I'd been _Fool's Day Garthed_.”

Sam raises his brow.

"Obviously I didn't believe him," Dean says defensively, and hopes that nobody asks for confirmation of that when they _do_ see Garth.

The picture he'd sent had been pretty damn convincing. Dude knows how to use Photoshop.

“So he never called when I went missing?” Kevin asks.

Sam shakes his head.

“Do you have any idea where he was going the last time you saw him?”  
  
“He was visiting Francine.”

 “Who?”  
  
“His girlfriend. In Cleveland.”

Dean, already making an attempt at one of Garth's numbers, shakes his head and scrolls to the next one.

“Do you know her address?” Sam asks.

“No.”

Garth's second cell goes directly to voice-mail, and Dean hangs up.

"Third times the charm," he mutters, hopeful, and dials the next one.

 “How about her last name?” Sam asks Kevin.

“I think it was Duffy? Or Dudley? Definitely starts with a D. She has twins, if that helps? Trevor and... something. I don't remember the other one.”

As Sam pulls his laptop closer and starts searching, Dean keeps trying all Garth's numbers; none ring. Wherever Garth is, he isn't charging any of his phones.  
  
Soon, Sam has Francine Dunphy's phone number, and half an hour later, Dean's had a long and unpleasant conversation with her. Apparently Garth never turned up, and she thought he'd dumped her. A GPS search of his cell phones turns up nothing, and without any other ideas, Sam sends out another mass email to see if anyone else has heard from him.

"You think Crowley might know?" Deans asks, glancing over at Sam, who shrugs.  
  
"Even if he does, he isn't talking."  
  
"So _make_ him talk," Kevin says, coldly, "or kill him already."

Sam's eyebrows shoot up.

"Dean agrees with me," Kevin says, defensively, "don't you, Dean?"

"He's got a point, Sam."  
  
"We might need him as a bargaining chip or something," Sam points out, "what if Abaddon comes back? Or some other demon? I'd rather keep him just in case."  
  
"I'll go see if I can get him to spill anything," Dean says, standing.  
  
"Dean--"  
  
"Don't worry, I wont go full Guantánamo on him."

Sam gives him a look like he doesn't believe him in the slightest, and Dean shrugs it off.

"I'll help," Kevin says, and Dean holds up a hand.  
  
"No."  
  
"Uh, yes, I--"  
  
" _No_."

“Why the hell not?”  
  
"For one, you've seen how guilty he gets when you're around," Dean points out, "if you're there, it'll just make it harder to understand him if he _does_ know something. For _two_ , we've already messed you up enough. I'm not adding trainee in torture to the list."

Kevin's protests fizzle out, and he nods, sitting back down.

"Fine," he mutters.

 

* * *

  
The dungeon is as cold as the last time he'd ventured down, and he finds Crowley hunched against the wall. He's pale and twitchy, and looking at him makes Dean's stomach turn. Every wisecrack he'd thought of on the way downstairs slinks out of his head.  
  
Crowley looks up at him like Dean is his savior.

"I knew I could count on you, Squirrel," he mumbles, tilting his head back to expose his neck, eyes pressed shut.

Dean feels the blade in his hand grow heavy.

"I'm not here to kill you," he says, putting the knife down by the door, and Crowley's face crumples.

"Please," he begs, "please, I deserve it, please."  
  
"Did you take Garth?"  
  
"I took—I've taken so many. So many."

Dean's jaw twitches, and he forces his voice to remain even.

"Was Garth one of them?"  
  
"So many, _so many_ and they all _screamed_. I--I didn't--they screamed--and I--every time--oh, God, please, God _please_ , just do it, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

He's beating his head against the wall, crying, wailing, tears and mucous running down his face, and Dean's ready to pick up the knife and put him out of his misery when Sam appears in the doorway behind him.

"Any luck?" he asks, and Dean looks at him incredulously as the thud of Crowley's skull colliding with stone echoes around them.  
  
"Take a guess."  
  
"The maze," Crowley says suddenly, his voice thick and shaking, eyes bright.  
  
"What maze?"  
  
"They _screamed_ ," he mumbles, breaking again, and thumps the back of his head against the wall, "so, so many, oh God, I'm _sorry_."

* * *

  
Dean's sitting alone at the table in the library, drinking coffee and trying to wake up enough to keep looking through the list of a million different mazes that Crowley could have been talking about when he hears footsteps in the hallway.  
  
He glances up as Castiel shuffles in to look through the shelves. It's the first time he's left the room on his own steam, and hesitantly, Dean makes his way over to stand beside him.

“Mornin', Cas."

  
Castiel offers a small smile in reply before pulling out a book and retreating back to his room. For the first time since he arrived, he leaves the door fully open. Dean decides to interpret it as an invitation.  
  
Still, he walks past the room five times before he works up the nerve to go inside, and even then he hovers in the doorway.

“Hey,” he says, and he's got nothing to follow it.

“Hello, Dean,” Castiel replies, and somehow, despite everything, that familiar expression gives Dean hope.

He scratches at his arm, talking a half-step inside.

“You doing okay?”

  
Castiel just shrugs. In the past week, Dean has come to understand why Sam gets so frustrated when Dean bottles things up, because as much as he hates to admit it—and he never would out loud, certainly not to his brother—talking helps. And Castiel needs to talk about this. Dean knows it's down to him to get him into a place where talking feels possible, but hell if he knows how.  
  
Except he does know, he realizes. He can damn well cook.  
  
There's nothing like a good meal to put someone in a better mood, he thinks—it certainly seemed to help his brother get through some of the bad days—and Dean hasn't cooked since before the fall. They've been living on leftovers and takeout all week, and Dean thinks that maybe this will be the way to help get him onto his feet.

“You hungry?” he asks hopefully.  
  
"I suppose."

He figures it's as close to a yes as he's going to get.  
  
In the kitchen, he considers making eggs, maybe pancakes or waffles with bacon or an omelet or—the ideas stop when he opens the mostly empty fridge. In the months they've been living here, they've never bothered to do a proper grocery run; always just buying enough for the rest of the day in case they end up taking off for a week. As a result there's nothing in the fridge but a half bottle each of orange juice and milk, two beers and a few sad slices of unnaturally yellow processed cheese.

“Dammit,” he mutters, shutting it and pulling open the cupboard instead.

It's not much better; just the tail end of a box of Cheerios, some crunchy peanut butter and four slices of mostly stale bread. It's while he's trying to decide between toast and cereal that an idea pops into his head.  
  
For a few minutes, he stares at the cereal box in his hands, chewing thoughtfully on his lip. He knows it's going to be a long time before Castiel is really okay, but for tonight at least, he might be able to take his mind off it.  
  
He can see it now; the four of them gathered around the table, music playing to drown out the sound of Crowley wailing in the basement, their plates piled high with home-made burgers and seasoned fries. Pie for dessert. Cherry, he thinks. Maybe even some of that overpriced vanilla bean ice-cream that he usually doesn't bother to waste money on. He remembers Castiel smiling around his 200th cheeseburger years ago, and he's sure that if he makes the burgers just right he can recreate that smile, too.  
  
Grinning, he pours a bowl of cereal and arranges it on a plastic tray with a three-quarters full glass of orange juice and a mug of black coffee. It isn't until he's straightening the spoon and wondering whether they have any sugar left that he realizes he's bringing Castiel breakfast in bed and planning a surprise party like some lovesick jackass in a Lifetime movie.  
  
 _All that's missing is the goddamn flower,_ he thinks.  
  
On some level, he's aware that he should probably be embarrassed by it. At least; that's how he'd usually feel. But he's on the way to getting Castiel to talk, getting him to feel better, and even if he never has the guts to tell him how much he cares, this could be enough. Just seeing him happy, even for a night, could be enough.  
  
When he gets back to Castiel's room, he's sleeping again, curled over on his side with his back to the wall, arms wrapped tight around the single, thin pillow. The book, an ancient thing bound in pale leather, is still open on the covers.  
  
Carefully, Dean puts the tray on the bedside table and leans down to pick it up. _De Miraculis Occultis Naturae Libri IV_ is handwritten in curling script on the spine, and Dean's rudimentary grasp of Latin tells him it's something to do with the wonders of nature. He marks the page and taps Castiel lightly on the shoulder.

“Cas?” he says, quietly, “breakfast.”

Castiel sucks in a sharp breath through his nose and blinks, sleep-addled as he looks up at Dean. Smelling the coffee, he looks at the tray.

“Thank you,” Castiel says, the words weighted, and Dean shrugs.

“It's nothing.”

Castiel stares at him as if nothing makes sense, and shakes his head as he sits up, “For letting me stay here.”

“We're not letting you stay here, Cas,” Dean tells him, a hint of exasperation sneaking through despite his best efforts, “this is as much your home as it is ours.”

An almost-smile twitches at the corners of Castiel's mouth, creases his brow, and it's so tiny that Dean's certain nobody else would even have noticed it there. It makes something painful catch in Dean's chest, and he glances down at the ground.

“Just so you know,” he adds.

He's hovering, torn between the desire to stay, to sit down on the edge of the bed and get him to open up, and the knowledge that Castiel isn't quite there yet.

“So, uh...” he starts after a while, watching as Castiel picks up the coffee and inhales deeply before taking a small sip, “the fridge is basically empty, and we won't last the day if I don't go pick up some food.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“Sam's still asleep, but Kevin's up, so if you need anything—”

“I'll be fine.”

He leaves Castiel to his breakfast, sticks his head into Kevin's room to let him know where he's going, and heads out into the sun for the first time in days.


	2. Lapis Lazuli

It's warmer out than he'd expected. Calmer.  
  
On some level, Dean is aware that they are in the eye of a storm. Soon all the fallen angels are going to come out of the woodwork; soon, someone is going to rise to power in Hell and come for Crowley.  
  
Right now, though, everything is just hanging. Suspended. It's unsettling. Dean tries to ignore it.  
  
The drive up to Hastings takes almost an hour, and though he could have made it a quick trip to the mini-mart in Lebanon, he'd rather take the extra time to make sure he gets everything on his mental check list.  
  
When he pulls into the Walmart parking lot around midday, it's crowded with minivans. He wonders how many of these people saw an angel fall, and suppresses an uneasy shudder.  
  
He makes his way inside, heading for the clothing department first, figuring he should grab a change of clothes to tide Castiel over until he feels up to making a trip himself. He's holding two pairs of comfortable canvas sneakers, trying to decide between gray and blue, when he realizes he has no idea what size Castiel wears. He dumps them back on the shelf and pulls out his phone.  
  
Sam picks up on the second ring, voice groggy.

“Yeah?”  
  
“Were you still asleep? It's like half past noon.”  
  
“Dean? What's... where are you?”  
  
“Men's footwear.”  
  
“What?”

  
There's the creak of bed-springs as Sam gets up, groaning.

“You know, you wouldn't be so tired if you just got the memory foam,” Dean tells him, picking up a leather boot and testing its weight, “that old box spring is gonna give you a bad back.”

 

“The hell are you talking about?”

 

“Can you go find out what size shoes Cas wears?”

 

“Castiel's... what—?”

 

“And his clothes, while you're at it.”

  
A few seconds pass as cogs start turning in Sam's half-asleep head, and Dean prods the steel toes of a pair of work boots, waiting.  


“Shouldn't he choose his clothes for himself?”

  
Dean sighs, leaning against his empty cart.

“Are you gonna help me or not?”  
  
“Fine,” Sam grunts, “I'll text you.”

  
There's a beep, and the call ends. Dean pulls a face at his phone.

“Cranky much?” he mutters, shoving it back into his pocket, and walks through the store to look at his options while he waits.

  
First off, he's pretty sure a pair of jeans is mandatory, so he looks at the different styles, trying to picture which cut would suit Castiel best. Straight cut or boot cut or skinny; zip or button; light or dark or blue or black.  
  
Apropos of nothing, that horrible scene from _There's Something About Mary_ when Ben Stiller gets his junk caught in the zipper of his pastel pants pops into his head. He shudders and decides on a pair with a button fly.  
  
There's a dark blue plaid shirt that seems right—it's a good color for Cas, he thinks—and a black jacket with big glossy buttons almost like the trench, though it's far shorter and a little thicker.  
  
When Sam finally texts him back he grabs all the right sizes and piles them into the cart, along with a couple of pairs of flannel pajama pants and henleys before moving on. He pauses a little awkwardly at the underwear section, the question of boxers or briefs not something he wants to dwell on too heavily, and grabs a five pack of boxer briefs in what he tells himself is definitely a compromise and not a matter of aesthetics before he heads back to the shoes.  
  
He picks the first pair he sees—lace-up boots—refusing to linger and choose like he had with the rest of the clothes, because he's starting to get mildly uncomfortable with the fact that this whole time he's been mentally dressing his best friend and making his choices based on how attractive the clothes would make him.  
  
Which is absurd really, because whatever he wears, Dean's pretty sure he's going to look good in it. He realizes he is perhaps a little biased, considering the fact that he's been somewhere in the vicinity of in love with the guy for at least the past year and a half, but that's neither here nor there.  
  
Besides, he thinks, it's not his physical looks that make him attractive.  
Jimmy had the exact same body, after all, and Dean can't imagine thinking he'd look hot in the navy-blue boxer briefs and the—  
  
Dean stops short, and a woman walking behind him bumps her cart into the back of his shins. He barely feels it.  
  
He's managed to push these kinds of thoughts out of his mind for years, and with Castiel so vulnerable, now is really not the time to let them back in. Dean feels like the biggest creep in the world, and naturally, it's at this precise moment that his cell starts buzzing in his pocket.  
  
He pulls it out, sees Sam's name on the display, and presses answer.  


“Hey, Sammy.”

 

“Dean, it's me.”

  
Not Sammy.  
  
Dean clears his throat, trying to push his recent thoughts well and truly out of his head for fear that they'll somehow translate into actual, horrifying speech.  


“Uh... hey, Cas,” he manages after a moment, “what's up?”

 

“I broke the lamp in my room. Sam said you could get a new one.”

 

“You broke your lamp?”

  
The image of Castiel throwing it across the room in anger makes Dean oddly hopeful; almost as much as the fact that he's actually talking.  


“It was an accident,” Castiel clarifies, “my balance is a little off because—”

  
He pauses on an unsteady breath, and Dean hears him gulp, uncomfortable, before he continues.  


“Because of my wings. Or lack of them, I suppose.”

  
Though he'd seen their shadow, Dean had never considered Castiel's wings as a physical thing. They had become shadow in his head; even the sound they made was like air. They were intangible, spectral. But Castiel could feel them, of course he could feel them. And now they're gone.  


“Cas, I'm sorry,” Dean sinks down onto a bench at the side of the shoe department, rubbing a palm roughly over his chin and wishing he were still at home, knowing this is a conversation they should be having face to face, “are you alright?”

 

“I burnt my palm on the light bulb, but it's not bad.”

 

“That's not what I meant.”

 

“Oh,” Castiel says, thinking for a moment, “yes, I'm okay.”

 

“Do you want to—”

 

“I'll talk to you when you get back.”

 

“Okay—”

  
Castiel hangs up before Dean can finish replying, and Dean laughs aloud because apparently that's one thing that hasn't changed. Angel or not, he sucks at goodbyes.  
  
He finds a lamp with a round paper shade that glows warm and yellow when it's plugged in, and on the display beside it is a soft maroon blanket. Both are added to the rapidly filling cart before he moves on to the food aisles.  
  
He's so preoccupied with thoughts of Castiel's wings that he grabs everything that looks even remotely appetizing, paying no attention beyond the few things he knows he'll need tonight. The cart is practically overflowing before he knows it, and when the cashier rings him up, informing him that, “that's two-forty-two fifty-five,” his jaw nearly hits the ground.  
  
If it were actually his own money that he were spending, he's pretty sure he'd be putting half of it back. As it is, the credit card in his wallet is registered to the dead-and-fictitious Spinal Tap drummer Mick Shrimpton, and Dean hands it over with a smile.  
  
The bags barely fit in the Impala's trunk. He wonders if maybe he went a little overboard.

* * *

  
It's mid afternoon by the time he gets back, and Kevin and Sam come to help him carry everything inside.  


“Cas went back to bed,” Kevin says, when he sees Dean looking at the door, and hefts out the last bag.

  
Worry flits over Dean's face before he can stop it, and Sam pushes the trunk closed.  


“He's just tired,” Sam clarifies, “he seems better, right Kev?”

 

“Yeah, I guess. He was out of his room for a few hours.”

  
As they slowly make their way back into the bunker, weighed down with bags, Sam gives Kevin an irritated look as if he isn't being as positive as he should be.  


“We watched The Simpsons,” Sam says, holding the door open as Dean and Kevin walk through, “I think he liked it...but I'm pretty sure his sense of humor is still set to angel mode.”

  
There's a hint of jealousy in Dean's gut that he wasn't there, but he stubbornly ignores it, schooling his features into something passably pleased.  
  
In the kitchen, Sam and Kevin half-heartedly offer to help him put the food away, but they don't know where anything goes. He kicks them out and sets to work.  
  
Once everything is squared away, he's left with three full bags of things for Castiel. It's a lot, he realizes. Probably much more than he should have bought. He worries that Sam had been right, that Castiel would have been better off choosing most of this stuff for himself. Suddenly the whole thing feels incredibly foolish, and to avoid making a scene of it, he carries the bags down the hall and leans them against Castiel's closed door before heading to the shower.  
  
When he emerges, Castiel's door is still closed, but the bags are gone. Despite wanting to know if he likes everything, Dean walks right by, ready to get back to the kitchen to get started on dinner.  
  
Sam and Kevin make no attempt to help, and he's glad. He's built up a kind of rhythm to working in the kitchen, and the few times Sam has tried to lend a hand, he's lost track of what needs to be done and the whole meal has ended up ruined. As he mixes spices and onions into ground beef, slices tomatoes and lettuce and cheese, he wonders how well it would go over if he put up a _No Sams_ sign on the kitchen door. Not well, probably. Though they'd all be saved from his brother's occasional attempts at cooking, so maybe it would be worth it.  
  
Potatoes get chopped and tossed with seasoning; bacon is grilled to perfect crispness; brioche buns are halved, ready to toast. He moves around the kitchen as if he was born for it. In a way, it makes sense. He's been good with a blade since he was a teenager, and he's been cooking for himself and his brother since before that. It's good, he thinks. Creating things instead of destroying them. In another life, maybe he could have done this for a living.  
  
While he waits for the fries to cook, he presses pastry into a pie pan, pours in cherries mixed with sugar and lemon rind and cornstarch, and tops it with a criss-cross pattern that he spends an embarrassingly long time perfecting. It waits on the counter until he's nearly done with the burgers, then he slides it into the oven.  
  
A couple of minutes before the burgers are ready to come out of the pan, Dean sticks his head out into the library to find it empty. He can hear Sam talking to Kevin in the TV room down the hall, and the sound of the shower running echoes through the bunker.  
  
While they're all occupied, he hurries out to clear all the books away from the long table.  
  
He thinks back on the way Lisa used to like the table set when they had company, and carefully lays out cutlery—knives (and spoons for the pie) on the right, forks on the left. He considers bringing out glasses, but decides it's too much, and opts for putting a beer in front of all four settings. Kevin might still be a year or two under age, but the one time Dean had mentioned it Kevin just muttered, “pot calling the kettle,” and snatched his drink back with a glare. Dean had let him be.  
  
There are a few records still laying around in the library, courtesy of whomever of the Men of Letters had been the music buff, and Dean settles on Bill Haley  & His Comets first album. Bright trumpets fill the room, bouncing off the walls, and Dean nods to himself, happy with his choice as he dusts off his hands, just as the oven timer rings.  
  
He leans into the hallway to shout, “Dinner!” before heading back to serve everything up and turn down the heat on the pie.  
  
When he walks back out, four loaded plates balanced on a tray, Sam, Castiel and Kevin are all sitting in the library. Castiel is wearing his new pajama pants and one of the henleys, and he looks better for it; as though just putting on the right size clothing has further moved him into the realm of okay.  


“Thank you for the clothes,” Castiel says, and Dean grins.

 

“No problem.”

  
As he puts down the tray, Dean notices both Sam and Kevin looking at him like he's lost his mind. He flushes, suddenly embarrassed by his admittedly over-enthusiastic approach to dinner time, and clears his throat.  


“What's with all the...” Sam waves his free hand over the set table as he takes his plate.

 

“People use silverware,” Dean says, defensively.

 

“Yeah, but for burgers?”

  
Dean hands Kevin his plate, ignoring his brother, then slides a plate in front of Castiel. If anyone were to ask, he'd swear all the burgers were the same, but he knows he put the crispiest bacon on this one, and the bun has a nicer shape, more rounded, like a burger is supposed to look. It's stupid, really, but he's excited.  
  
A little curl of nervous pride flutters in his stomach while he waits for the first bite and the "this is amazing, Dean, thank you" that he's sure is coming, but Castiel takes one look at the burger, purses his lips as if trying to stop from being sick, and pushes it away.  
  
Sam, his burger already raised to his open mouth, stops, looking from Castiel to Dean with a raised brow.

  
"You not hungry, Cas?" he asks.

 

"I'll just have cereal, if that's okay."

  
Dean stares at him, not entirely sure he heard correctly.

"But I made you a burger.”

  
He doesn't see how that isn't already obvious, but maybe, he thinks a little desperately, Castiel is just confused about what's been put in front of him because... because...  
  
He's got nothing.  


"I'm grateful,” Castiel says, looking up at him, “but I can't eat this, Dean."

 

"But you like burgers. I specifically remember you liking burgers,” Dean says, utterly lost and not sure why things aren't going the way he'd planned, "you literally ate like a thousand of them in one night."

 

“A thousand?” Kevin repeats, confused and mildly horrified, and Sam mouths I'll tell you later.

  
Castiel just shakes his head, leaning away from the plate.

"Jimmy liked burgers.”

  
There's a pit in Dean's stomach, and it's growing. This isn't how it was supposed to go.

“I... even if I did enjoy them then, the thought of eating another, the smell alone...” Castiel shakes his head and gulps, trying to hold back bile, his jaw tense, “I'm sure it's very good, but I can't eat it."

 

"You can't just live on Cheerios.”

 

"It's fine."

 

"No, it's not,” Dean says, his voice rising, “What else do you want?"

 

"I don't know."

 

"You seem to know what you do and don't like, so what do you like?"

  
He's overreacting and he knows it, but his mouth has stopped taking orders from his brain.

"I..." Castiel just looks at him, lost, and shakes his head.  
  
"Well, what did you eat while you were shacked up with whatshername?" Dean asks, immediately wondering where the hell that came from, and judging by the uncomfortable looks on both Sam and Kevin's faces, they're wondering too.

 

"Who?"

 

"Your _wife_ ," he says with a sneer, far more venom in his voice than he planned for.

  
He knows perfectly well what her name is—he'd spent half an hour on the phone with her after leaving Castiel at the hospital, after all—but he can't bring himself to say it. He refuses to name the reason for that as jealousy, but it's there all the same as he crosses his arms.  
  
Sam takes a massive bite of his burger and sinks back into his seat in a futile attempt to make himself invisible. Kevin just stares. Awkward, thy name is Dean Winchester.

"Oh," Castiel says presently, breaking the uncomfortable silence and inclining his head, "you mean Daphne."

 

"Unless you went off and married some other random chick since then."

 

"No, I haven't married..." Castiel narrows his eyes briefly, realizing that Dean isn't being serious, before going on, "we had nachos sometimes."

 

"Fine."

  
Dean grabs Castiel's plate, along with his own, and storms off into the kitchen.

"Wait, Dean, I'll eat tha--" Sam starts, through his mouthful, until he's cut off by the distinct sound of the lot being dumped into the trash.

 

“Here,” Kevin says, quietly, taking his burger from his plate and adding it to Sam's, “he keeps forgetting I'm vegan.”

  
Stalking back out, Dean snatches his keys and wallet from where they sit on the end of the table.

"Dean?" Castiel says, standing up, utterly bewildered, "you don't have to—"

  
Ignoring him, Dean heads up the stairs and out the door. It doesn't escape his notice that even after everything he bought today, he failed to get any ingredients for the one thing Castiel actually wants.  
  
As he slams the Impala into reverse, pulling out onto the road, he wonders if that's a sign and avoids eye contact with himself in the rear view mirror.  
  
He fumes the whole way into town, and at a quarter past eight Dean finds himself staring angrily down into a barrel of avocados, trying to pick the right one--ripe, but not too ripe--to make guacamole from scratch. He has the distinct feeling he's made a fool of himself, and he's beginning to dread going home.  
  
His stomach rumbles loud, reminding him that he could have eaten forty-five minutes ago if he'd just let Castiel have the cereal he wanted or any of the million other things already there in the cupboard.  
  
 _But he wants nachos_ , his brain says, then immediately counters, _I don't give a shit._  
  
Obviously he does though, or he wouldn't be here. That knowledge just pisses him off more. He picks up the sixth avocado and squeezes it. Not ripe. He shoves it back into the barrel. A man nearby gives him a dirty look, presumably unimpressed with the way he's handling the produce, and Dean scowls right back until the man walks away.  
  
Though he keeps telling himself that it's all Castiel's fault for being picky and ungrateful, a part of him knows that he's just projecting his own crap as usual. Because he'd been so sure, so certain that he'd be able to make him feel better. But all he'd done was make him nauseous and remind him that his body wasn't always his own.  
  
Dean's pretty sure he couldn't have screwed it up more if he'd tried.  
  
He squeezes one avocado after another before finally settling on an acceptably soft, purplish green fruit, and throws it roughly into the basket hanging on his arm, then stalks off to find the rest. Fresh cilantro, black beans, tortilla chips and sour cream all find their way into the basket with varying degrees of aggression.  
  
The other customers he walks past all give him a wide berth, and catching his dark expression reflected in the freezer door, Dean exhales slowly, rearranging his features into something less psycho killer and more friendly neighbor.  
  
Judging by the woman who not-so-subtly angles her body in front of her small daughter as he passes, it isn't entirely convincing.  
  
At the checkout, standing behind an old man with more cat food than human food in his cart, he looks down at the avocado. Having been thrown so carelessly and squashed by everything else he's stacked on top of it, it's already bruising visibly along one side.  
  
He glares at it, thinking, _fuck him. He wants to be a picky asshole, he can deal with half-brown guac_.  
  
The beep, beep, beep of the scanner is slow.  
  
Finally the conveyor moves forward enough for him to unload his collection, but when he picks up the bruised avocado, he lets out a sigh and silently thanks whoever is posing as God these days that nobody is here to see him.  
  
He heads back for a new one.  
  
When he returns to the bunker, it's almost half past ten, and the library is empty. He can hear Sam and Kevin clicking away at their laptops in their respective rooms, and a glance down the hall at all the closed doors tells him Castiel is most likely in bed again. He has no doubt that he's messed up royally, and whatever Castiel had been planning to tell him about his wings is more than likely going to go unsaid now. Or maybe he'll talk to Sam or Kevin instead.  
  
Stewing in self-loathing, Dean walks through the bunker, clicking on the kitchen light and dumping the bags of groceries down on the counter. There's the unmistakable smell of burnt pastry in the air, and the cherry pie is sitting on top of the stove, presumably only taken out of the oven when someone noticed the smoke. The crust is practically charcoal. He dumps it in the trash.  
  
All the dishes from his wasted burger preparation are clean and drying on the rack, and as he takes a cutting board from it's place at one end, the whole thing overbalances and crashes, plates and all, onto the floor. Shards of ceramic fly through the room.

  
"Son of a _bitch_ ," he growls, kicking at the fry pan that hit him squarely on the foot, and leans against the counter, breathing heavily.

  
Once the pan settles, the silence in the bunker is thick, and Dean crouches down to pick up the pieces. He's sweeping the last of them into a dustpan when a distant door opens, and Dean presses his eyes closed as he listens to what is unmistakably Castiel's bare feet padding down the hallway toward him. He stops in the doorway, and Dean can't bring himself to turn around.

“You hungry?”

  
He tips the dustpan into the trash and shoves it back into the cupboard below the sink, before forcing himself to stand up and pointing toward the bags on the counter.  


“I got stuff for nachos if you still want them.”

  
As far as apologies go, it's not his best, but he still doesn't know how to explain his overreaction. In lieu of dealing with thinks like an adult, he pulls two tomatoes from the fridge and holds them out.

“Cut these," he says, "and I'll get started on the guac."

Castiel takes them without a word.

  
They work in silence, cooking together like they fight together; moving out of each others way without having to think about it, passing knives without having to ask. It's smooth and it's easy and by the time the dish is in the oven, all the tension has bled out of Dean.  
  
As he holds the cutting board under the faucet, he glances across at Castiel, who's crouching down to stare at the nachos through the oven window. Dean turns back to the sink, worrying at his lower lip.

“I'm sorry,” he breathes out, wiping away tomato seeds and cilantro and watching them swirl down the drain, “I was an ass. I've got no excuse.”

  
Castiel doesn't answer right away, and Dean looks around to find him standing, mouth turned down.  


“Well, I'm sorry, too,” he says eventually, looking up to meet Dean's eyes, “you've been trying to make me welcome since I got here and I've been wholly ungracious. I'll try harder.”

 

“Cas, you don't have to—” Dean turns off the faucet, drying his hands while he thinks, “I know you need time to adjust. You don't owe me... us anything.”

  
He dumps the dish towel down on the counter and leans against it, folding his arms across his chest.  


“Honestly, I've just been worried.”

 

“You don't need to worry.”

 

“Can't just switch it off.”

 

“I know,” Castiel tells him, sitting down at the counter, “I can relate.”

 

“Just let me know what you need, okay? Whatever you want, just ask and I'll do it.”

For a moment Castiel just thinks to himself, and he looks down with what Dean could swear was a coy smile. Dean feels his pulse thundering and promptly tells it to calm the fuck down.

"What is it? You think of something?" he asks, trying not to sound as desperate as he suddenly feels, and Castiel lifts one shoulder in a half shrug.

 

“Just that I enjoyed cooking with you. It was... nice. Distracting. I'd like to do that again.”  
  
“Anytime, Cas,” Dean tells him with a smile, a little thrilled that Castiel actually enjoyed himself, “what else?”

 

Castiel shrugs, thinking for a moment, then seems to give up

 

“Right now I think I'd just like to eat nachos and watch television.”

 

“You're already going to do that.”

 

“I'd like you to join me.”

Dean laughs aloud.  


“Cas, buddy, if you think there was even a chance I was going to let you eat that whole dish of nachos on your own, you've got another thing coming.”

  
Castiel smiles at him, eye-crinkling wide, and for the first time since he fell, it doesn't look like it hurts.

* * *

  
On the sofa, feet up on the coffee table with a heavy dish of nachos between them, Dean and Castiel settle in to watch TV. The blanket Dean bought is draped over Castiel's shoulders, and Dean hides his smile at the sight, taking a pull of his beer.  
  
Sam walks in during the first commercial break and looks relieved that the atmosphere is much calmer than it had been at dinner. He drops into an armchair with a yawn.  


“What are you guys watching?”

 

“Groundhog Day,” Dean replies, and halfway through the first word Sam is pushing himself back to his feet. He walks out of the room, face grim, and Dean leans back over the sofa to call after him. “It was the only thing on!”

  
Sam doesn't reply, just keeps walking until they hear his bedroom door click shut. Dean looks back at Castiel with a grimace.  


“Tuesdays,” he says by way of explanation.

  
It takes a couple of seconds for Castiel to realize what he means, and when he does, he looks toward Sam's room with a worried frown.  


“Should we watch something else?”  
  
“Nah, he's already gone,” he points at the screen, blindly grabbing more nachos with his other hand, “you're missing it.”

  
Castiel settles back, though not before casting another couple of glances at the door, and watches the movie. Occasionally, during his favorite parts, Dean looks across to see if he's enjoying it. More than once, Castiel's mouth ticks up at the side in amusement, and Dean shoves more nachos into his mouth in an attempt to disguise his answering grin.  
  
When the credits roll, Dean turns to him, eager.  


“So? What's the verdict?”

 

“I liked it. It raised a number of interesting philosophical questions,” Castiel says, and Dean lets his head fall back against the sofa cushion with a laugh.

 

“Dude, it's a Bill Murray movie.”

 

“The story was clearly rooted in existentialism. The Phil Connors character represents a—” Castiel looks across at Dean's face, and cuts himself off, embarrassed, “never mind.”

 _Fuck, he's cute when he's shy,_ Dean thinks, despite himself. It's almost as good as when he's confused.

 

“No, no, tell me," he says, "What does he represent?”

 

“I'm reading too far into it, as you said I did with the cartoon about the bird and the coyote.”

 

“Sam actually seemed to think you were on to something with that.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yeah,” Dean says with a grin, “wouldn't shut up about it for days. Damn near drove me insane.”

  
Castiel thinks for a moment and smiles.  


“Is that why you kept praying for me to 'make Sammy shut his giant mouth'?”

  
Dean laughs.  


“I forgot about that.”

  
They're silent for a while, just sitting in the dark, and Dean picks at the few tortilla chips left in the bottom of the dish between them as he puts off the conversation. Eventually, he works up his nerve and clears his throat.  


“So, do you want to talk about what you said on the phone?”

  
Castiel pulls the blanket around himself unconsciously, and it's such a human movement that Dean wonders how much of it is Castiel and how much is muscle memory.  


“About my wings,” he says quietly, and Dean nods, moving the empty dish onto the coffee table.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“I had three pairs,” Castiel say quietly, “and now they're gone."  
  
“What were they like?” Dean asks before he can stop himself. He's wondered for years, wished he could have seen them.  
  
"Only one set was for flying,” Castiel tells him, and he looks like he's remembering it, the feeling of soaring, of coasting through cloud, “the others were for... I suppose modesty, is the closest human concept. Or respect. They... I don't know how to describe them.”

  
He frowns, troubled, and Dean reaches out to his shoulder.  


“Hey, it's okay, you don't have to—”

 

“No, I _want_ to, it's just difficult. Language is limited. Even in Enochian...” he trails off as his fingers work at the edge of the blanket.

 

“Maybe you could draw them.” Dean suggests, and Castiel shakes his head.

 

“There aren't enough colors. Or dimensions.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Perhaps it's worth a try, though. It might help me remember. I don't want to forget.”

  
He falls silent, picking at the blanket, and Dean stops himself from asking more questions. Sam and Kevin were right. He needs to stop pushing, just let Castiel say what he can, when he can. Eventually, Castiel glances up at him with a sad smile.  


“I think I would have looked somewhat alarming to you. Maybe it's a good thing you couldn't see me.”

 

“Nah, I'd still think you were a dork,” Dean says, despite knowing Castiel is probably right.

  
Castiel narrows his eyes but doesn't comment; just stares at him as he tries to find a way to explain.  


“I was very tall,” he says after a long time.

 

“Chrysler building, right?”

 

“That may have been a slight exaggeration. Your grandfather's lack of respect irritated me.”

  
Dean smirks.  


“Knew you were just showing off.”

 

“I was closer to the height of the Eiffel Tower.”

 

“Oh, short stuff then,” Dean says, voice thick with sarcasm, and Castiel responds, straight-faced and serious.

 

“Compared to other angels, yes.”

 

“Hey, you were still taller than Sam.”

 

“I suppose that is impressive,” Castiel says, and Dean laughs aloud as he pulls his knees up onto the sofa, leaning with an elbow against the backrest, waiting for Castiel to go on. 

He's thoughtful, breathing slow, and in the flickering blue light of the TV, Dean marvels in the knowledge that he's really here. It had seemed impossible for so long.

 

When Castiel speaks again, he's faraway, lost in memory.  


“I only manifested my wings on Earth once," he says, brow furrowing, "they looked like a birds wings.”

 

"They didn't usually?” Dean asks, surprised, and Castiel shakes his head, leaning back against the sofa in a mirror of Dean's position.

 

“It was strange seeing feathers instead of...” Castiel says, a frown marring his features as he struggles to explain, “well, it doesn't make sense now, but in my true form, my wings were the color of electricity.”

 

A little voice in the back of Dean's head pipes up at that, pointing out that nothing has ever made more sense than Castiel being electric, and Dean pointedly ignores it while Castiel continues.

 

“When I flew they sounded... they sounded _blue_. Like the winds of Jupiter.”

 

“I guess that book of lore was right then,” Dean says to himself, and Castiel looks over at him in confusion.

 

“Which book?”

 

“I, uh... I looked you up,” Dean tells him, self-consciously scratching at the back of his neck, “years ago. Just after we met. There wasn't much, but what I did find said you were an Angel of Thursday, and you were associated with Jupiter and air and _lapis lazuli_.”

  
He over-enunciates the last part, and Castiel seems surprised.  


“You found all that in a book?”

 

“Yeah. There was some stuff about incense, too. To use when praying to you or whatever.”

 

“Agrimony,” Castiel says with a smile.

 

“And cedar and sage, I think?”

  
Castiel nods, smile growing wider, clearly pleased that Dean remembers so much.  


“Hyssop and sandalwood and mistletoe, too,” he says, his lips lifting on one side as he adds; “though it's been a very long time since anyone bothered with any of that. All the prayers sent to me in recent years tended to have the word _ass_ in them.”

Dean snorts out a laugh.  


“Yeah, but you got to hang out with me, and I'm obviously better than some stinky herbs.”

 

“That's debatable,” Castiel says, tilting his head to look at him.

 

“Smartass.”

  
Castiel fixes him with a slightly judgmental frown.  


“It's always _ass_ with you. I'm beginning to think you have a fixation.”

 

“Thanks for that, Freud,” Dean says, glad the darkness of the room is hiding the fierce blush that he can feel spreading over his face.

  
Castiel huffs out a breath that sounds a lot like laughter, and when he speaks again, Dean's relief is palpable.  


“I was joking. Freud's work was questionable at best,” Castiel says, “I read a lot when I used the Google on Sam's computer to research the human condition.”

 

“Googled.”

 

“What?”

 

“You don't 'use the Google',” Dean tells him through a smirk, “you Google.”

 

“It would be much easier to remember these things if the English language didn't change so frequently.”

 

“Tell it to Webster's, buddy.”

Castiel lifts his feet onto the sofa, and Dean can see him deliberating, hesitating to say something, so he ducks his head to catch his eye, trying for an encouraging smile. It seems to work; Castiel takes a slow, steady breath, and swallows—gulps, really—before he speaks.

“The angel you found. The one who... the one who drowned--” he begins, tugging at the blanket around his shoulders, “what did you do with his body?” 

"I buried him outside the church."

Castiel nods.

“It's a real nice spot. Right under a tree,” Dean says, glad he took the time to do it, “we can go, if you want. Pay our respects.”

"Perhaps,” Castiel says, letting out a sigh, “You'll tell me, won't you? If you find another of my brothers or sisters?"  
  
"Yeah, of course."  
  
"Good. Even if... even if it's bad news, I want you to tell me."  
  
"I will."  
  
"Thank you. I just.. I want to know where they are. It might seem strange, but of everything, not being able to hear them is the most difficult part. Even when I was lost, when I was bad, I could still hear them. Now... I've never known silence before. Not really. Losing my wings hurt, physically it was _agonizing_ , but losing my brothers and sisters voices... the silence is just so heavy, and I...”

  
He trails off, expression pained, his arms closed tight over his chest, hands pressed under his arms. Dean doesn't know what to tell him; most of what he's said so far has been sarcastic, all attempts to make light of the situation so it doesn't seem so bad, but he knows it doesn't really help.  
  
He has a sinking suspicion that he's just not cut out for pep talks, and he's still searching for something to say when Castiel breaks the silence, his voice quiet, eyes still downcast.

 

“I'm... Dean, would you... will you hug me again?” he asks, squeezing his eyes closed as if it's too much to ask, “Sam told me hugging was awkward, so I understand if you don't—”

 

“You tried to hug Sam?”

  
 _Not really the point_ , Dean thinks to himself, but it was a knee jerk response and he figures he can't really be held accountable for it.  


“After he got his soul back.”

 

“Oh.”

  
Dean nods, trying not to be offended that _he'd_ never been offered a hug, when his brain catches up and he realizes he's being offered a hug right now. Or one is being requested of him, which is basically the same thing. He clears his throat and stands up, spreading his arms. Castiel just looks up at him.  


“Come on, then.”

  
Dropping the blanket, Castiel stands, slipping his arms around Dean's waist. Dean's palms settle against his back, and, turning his face into Dean's chest, his breath tickles warm through Dean's shirt.

  
Dimly, it registers in Dean's mind that it's not the most platonic of ways to hug someone—he's sure as hell never held another dude quite like _this_ —but telling that to Castiel right now just seems rude.  
  
It doesn't take long for Dean to realize that he's crying. His entire body is trembling, hair tickling against Dean's cheek with the movement. Dean squeezes him tighter, one hand smoothing down from the nape of his neck and over his shoulders and back again in a soothing motion.  


“You know, you don't have to ask,” Dean says after a while, “you need a hug, just go for it okay?”

 

“Okay.”

They stand there for a very long time.  



	3. Aeonian Ink

It's late when they switch off the TV, and they part ways in the hall, Castiel retreating into his room with a quiet murmur of thanks while Dean heads for the bathroom.

As he brushes his teeth, leaning exhausted against the sink, Dean notices the dark patch on his shoulder where Castiel's face had been pressed, tears soaked into the cotton of his t-shirt.

It scares him more than he cares to admit, because he never would have expected Castiel to take falling like this. Of course he expected him to be hurting—it's only natural—but he's always been an immovable force, strong-willed and hardy. Right now he's not himself; he's broken, and seeing him like this shakes Dean to his core.  
  
It's made worse by the fact that Dean isn't used to feeling so helpless, either. Normally, there's something to fight, something to plunge a blade into to solve the problem. If he could get his hands on Metatron, he'd do it in a heartbeat, but even if he could he's not sure that it would help.

He washes his face, breathing slowly for a moment as he tells himself that tonight was good, tonight helped. He hopes it's true. Repeats the thought the whole time he rinses his mouth, washes his face, walks to his bedroom door.

But the moment Dean steps into his room, it cuts off. Something is missing.

He can _feel_ it, a prickling sixth sense at the back of his neck, and he looks over every inch of the room with suspicion. When his eyes settle on the empty space on the shelf over his bed, the space where the angel blade belongs, his blood runs cold.  
  
He's slamming open the door to Castiel's bedroom within seconds, though not before his head fills with images of Castiel laying on the ground with the blade in his hand, blood spreading out beneath him like wings.  
  
But Castiel is there, sitting on the edge of his bed, pulling off his socks, and when the door hits the wall he flinches and jerks to his feet. It doesn't take long for Dean to realize he doesn't have it. He looks around the room, just in case, eyes darting over every surface. It isn't there.

“Dean? What is it?”  
  
“Angel blade's missing. I thought...” Dean gulps, shaking his head, “I thought—”

Castiel's eyes go wide.

"Do you think... perhaps Kevin—"

Sam appears in the doorway as Dean rushes back through it, looking for all the world like someone woken mid-slumber by a fire alarm. He staggers back to avoid a collision.

“What's going on?”

Dean shoves open the door to Kevin's bedroom, flicking on the light, and it's empty. His bed is still made.

“Dungeon,” is all Dean says, turning on his heel and pushing past his brother.

As he runs down the hall with Sam and Castiel following close behind, he pictures what they're going to find; the image of Kevin standing over Crowley's body, blood dripping from the blade in his hand, takes the top position, and as he rounds the final corner, approaching the doorway, Dean doesn't know whether he's going to be pissed or proud. But the dungeon door is wide open, and there's nobody there.

The chains hang limp from the wall, ends pooled atop the thin blanket Dean had left to keep Crowley quiet, and the single good sign in all of this is the distinct lack of blood. Behind him he hears Sam exhale and swear under his breath, and barely five seconds pass before the distinct sound of an iron door clunking shut echoes down three flights of stairs.

They run.

By the time they reach the bunker's entrance, shoving out into the cold, Kevin is unconscious and slumped against the side of the Impala. The engine is idling, the rear passenger door open, and Dean decides that no matter what, he's pissed. _Definitely_ pissed. All possibility of proud has left the god damn building.

Just like Crowley.

“ _Shit.”_

Leaving Sam and Castiel to check up on Kevin, Dean pushes through low-hanging branches, moving as quietly as possible as he scans the trees surrounding the bunker for any sign of movement, listening for any sound. There's nothing. He doubles back toward the others. Kevin, shaken awake by Sam's firm hands on his shoulders, blinks, disoriented, before scrambling to his feet.

Taking a half step forward, he stares into the trees.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Dean shouts, still moving toward him, and Kevin flinches.

“Dean,” Sam warns, and Dean fixes him with a glare.

“ _Sam_ ,” he all but snarls back, “maybe you didn't notice but Crowley is _gone_.”

“He—he said my mom was still alive,” Kevin says shakily, “he was going to take me to her. I didn't think he'd... I thought he was...”

Kevin shakes his head and takes a deep breath to center himself. He stands up straighter, turning to look Dean right in the eyes, and Dean can't help but be kind of impressed with how well he controls his fear. He's grown a lot in the past couple of years. It sucks almost as much as it doesn't.

“He's still in the cuffs, so he's on foot,” Kevin says, pointing into the trees, “he can't have gone far. Unless—how long was I out?”

“Not long,” Castiel says, leaning down to pick up the angel blade from beside the Impala's front tire, “a couple of minutes at most.”

He wipes the dirt from the blade, wrapping his fingers tight around the hilt, before looking into the woods.

“We should hurry,” he says, glancing back at the others, “before he gets too far.”

Dean reaches into the car, turning the key and pulling it out with a sharp glare at Kevin, and they set out into the woods behind the bunker. It's slow moving—none wanting to tread too roughly in case the sound travels and alerts Crowley to their whereabouts—but even so the ex-King manages to avoid them.

They stay out for hours, searching through the trees, but as the sun begins to bleach the sky Sam lets out an exhausted sigh and runs his hands back through his hair.

“He's gone, guys,” he says, voice scratchy from a lack of sleep, and the others stop walking, turning to look at him, “we're not gonna find him now. I vote we head back before we all drop.”

Reluctantly, they agree, and begin the slow traipse back through the underbrush, leaves crunching under their aching feet. Kevin is in front, and now that they've given up on the chase, the realization that he'd had been moments away from driving off in the Impala finally has time to sink in. Dean frowns.

“I can't believe you were going to steal my car,” he says, and Kevin looks back at him guiltily.

“I would have brought it back.”

“Right.”

With a slump to his shoulders, Kevin digs his hands into his pockets as he presses on, and Dean glares after him.

There are small sounds out in the woods; the dry crack of twigs, the high song of birds singing as the sun grows brighter. It's still quiet over all, though, and for a long time nobody says anything. Dean's feet feel numb, the thin slippers he'd commandeered from the Men of Letter's closet weren't exactly designed with a night of hiking through the woods in mind, and it's not until he's about to groan about it that he realizes both Sam and Castiel are completely barefoot. At the sight of dirt and blood mingling around a gash along the side of Castiel's right foot, twisting up over the top of his big toe, he bites back his complaint.

It's as they are crossing a mostly dry creek bed at around quarter to seven in the morning, still close to an hours walk away from the bunker, that Castiel comes to a halt.

"Sam, Kevin; I need to speak with Dean privately," he calls ahead, rubbing his palms nervously against his thighs as they look back at him.

Kevin just shrugs, continuing forward through the trees, but Sam glances at Dean with a raised brow, waiting for Dean to confirm that everything is okay.

“It's cool,” Dean says, with a dismissive wave of his hand, “we wont be far behind.”  
  
Sam hesitates, but ultimately nods, following the prophet. Once they are out of earshot, disappearing between the trees, Dean looks back at Castiel. He's sinking down onto a boulder by the creek, toes curling in on themselves in the cold. Dean walks toward him.

"Everything okay, Cas?"

Castiel frowns, nodding, and seems to be searching for words until he finally looks up.

"When you came into my room earlier...” he starts, pausing to wet his lips, a deep line in his brow, “you thought I'd... you thought I'd killed myself."

As true as it is, Dean hadn't been prepared to talk about it. Hadn't realized it had been that obvious how scared he was. But Castiel is looking at him, searching, and Dean sits down beside him with a sigh.

"I... yeah,” he says quietly, “I did."  
  
"Because of what I said in Oklahoma last year?" he asks, and Dean nods.

They'd never spoken about it again, but it was always there, a constant buzz in the back of his mind every time Castiel had disappeared. He'd wanted to bring it up again, but it was too much, and he'd had no idea where to start.

Now, Castiel looks at his hands, twisting in his lap.

"I should never have said that to you."

"Better than keeping it to yourself. I'm glad you told me,” he says, tilting his head forward to catch his gaze, “but is it still... with everything that's happened, are you okay _now_?"

"I am,” he says, and his voice sounds so certain that Dean exhales in relief, “I just... I wanted you to know you don't have to worry about me doing that. Not any more. And I _am_ sorry I said it, even if you think I shouldn't be. Honestly, I'd hoped you'd forgotten."  
  
"Not exactly an easy thing to forget, Cas"  
  
"Good point," Castiel nods, half smiling, "did you tell Sam?"  
  
"Wasn't mine to tell."  
  
"Thank you.”

Dean leans over, knocking Castiel's shoulder with his own.

"You ready to head back?"  
  
"In a minute. I haven't been outside in a while. It's nice out here."

"Yeah. You think this creek leads anywhere?"

Castiel tilts his head in question, and Dean stands, stepping into the middle of the creek bed and staring down the easy slope, where it disappears through the trees.

"Y'know, like a lake or something,” he says, squinting into the distance, “maybe we could go fishing sometime."  
  
"I'd like that," Castiel says, and Dean looks down at him with a smile.

The idea of there being a future with Castiel around to plan for is something he could definitely get used to.

* * *

The bunker is silent when they get back, and Dean pauses outside Castiel's door. It's nearly half past eight in the morning, and he's just barely standing, but Castiel's foot is cut and there's no way Dean's going to let him get an infection when he's barely two weeks human.

“Gotta patch that up first,” he says, pointing, and Castiel glances down with a sigh, one hand resting on the doorknob.

“Can't it wait?”

“Humor me,” he looks back up to find Castiel looking at him reproachfully, and gestures toward the bathroom, “It'll take two minutes.”

Dean pushes lightly at his back, and with a look on his face like a four year old being told he has to eat his broccoli, Castiel shuffles down the hall. Dean laughs, and Castiel glares at him over his shoulder.

“I hardly see what's funny about me having injured myself,” he says as they step into the bathroom, voice echoing off the tile, and Dean rolls his eyes.

“Just sit on the tub.”

The glare deepens, but he complies, and Dean runs the hot water to soak a towel. After squeezing the excess, he holds it out. Castiel just looks at it.

“C'mon, I'm not gonna clean it for you.”

Castiel takes the towel, lifting his foot up onto his opposite knee, and wipes away the dried blood and dirt while Dean rummages through the medicine cabinet. When he turns back, first aid kit in hand, he finds Castiel pressing the towel hard against his toe, gritting his teeth.

“It started bleeding,” he explains, and Dean kneels down on the tile, batting his hands away to check the damage.

He lets out a low hiss. The cut is worse than he thought, but at least it's clean.

“You're gonna need stitches,” he announces, and Castiel nods.

“Okay.”

Whatever did it was sharp, and if it were any deeper he'd be looking at some serious nerve damage.

“Did you step on broken glass or something?”

“I dropped my blade,” he mutters, looking away as if he's embarrassed about it.

“Jeez, Cas.”

“Inhabiting this body is very different to merely operating it.”

“It'll take time, I guess. You'll figure it out.”

Returning the towel, Dean pulls Castiel's hand back to apply pressure while he opens the first aid kit, searching for a needle and suture thread. Castiel watches him carefully, and Dean avoids his eyes because he knows how much pain he'll be able to see there. Just over a week ago, he'd have been able to take care of this himself without even thinking about it. Then again, Dean thinks, he never would have dropped the blade in the first place.

“It's really not that bad,” Castiel insists when Dean finds the needle.

“Yeah, well,” Dean pulls a length of thread loose and snaps it, “let's see how many stitches you need first, tough guy.”

It takes four tries before Dean manages to get the thread through the needles eye, and when it's ready he looks up.

“This might sting a bit,” he warns him, but when he begins Castiel doesn't flinch; just rests a hand on Dean's shoulder and breathes.

With each push of the needle through his skin, each pull of thread, he inhales, exhales, slow and steady. Dean listens to the slow rhythm of it. With the warm feeling of Castiel's palm on his shoulder, he closes the cut with small, precise stitches.

In the end it takes seven, and he dabs on antiseptic before wrapping the whole thing in a bandage. As he winds it around, he swipes the tip of his index finger lightly under the arch of Castiel's foot, bracing for startled laughter, but there's no reaction.

Securing the bandage with tape, he files _not ticklish_ away for future reference, far more disappointed about it than he could have anticipated.

“All done,” he says, knees popping as he pushes to his feet, “should heal up pretty quick.”

“Thank you,” Castiel says through a yawn, and Dean holds out a hand to pull him up.

Castiel's fingers close around his wrist as he stands, and back on his feet he's right in Dean's space, too close. He hasn't shaved since he fell, and he's slowly but surely making his way out of stubble territory and into beard city. At this point, he's so used to Castiel being the exception that he doesn't sweat the realization that he's totally into it, and for a brief moment, standing there in the bright lights of the bathroom, he wonders what would happen if he just _did_ something. If he leaned in to close those few inches between them. He thinks about how it would feel, soft lips parting, the rough scratch of Castiel's beard against his cheek. His heart thunders at the idea, and he swallows, steps back.

It's been too long since he slept, he decides, and this kind of thinking will take him nowhere good.

“I'm gonna get some sleep,” he says roughly, heading out of the bathroom and clicking off the light, “Nobody better wake me for at least five hours.”

He doesn't look to see if Castiel follows.

* * *

As it turns out, Dean only gets three hours and fifteen minutes before Sam is pounding at his door, and he drags himself out of bed, squinting into the over-bright hallway.

“We've got a problem,” Sam says, and shoves his laptop into Dean's hands.

It's a miracle he doesn't drop it.

“Haven't we filled the quota by now?” he mutters, blinking the sleep from his eyes and sitting down on the edge of his bed to read the slightly blurry words on the screen.

Not long after they'd moved into the bunker, they'd hacked in to the Lebanon police department's incident stream, just in case. With Charlie's help they'd set up am automatic monitoring system that alerted Sam via email if any of their flagged terms— _cemetery, occult, Impala_ , to name a few—showed up in the log.

Much to Sam's disgust, the thing runs on Windows '95, and right now the outdated graphics are filling the screen of his computer.

 

****

 

 

Looking up from the laptop to his brother, Dean shakes his head in disbelief.

“For fucks... they cut him out of the goddamn cuffs,” he raises a hand to scrub over his eyes, “he could be anywhere.”

“Not much we can do until he turns up,” Sam says, taking his computer back, “but I'm thinking we should double check the wards, just in case he comes back.”

“Yeah, gimme a minute and I'll help.”

“I'll dig out the supplies,” Sam tells him, “meet you in the war room.”

Halfway out the door, he stops.

“Hey, before he wakes up... what was Cas' deal last night? He okay?”

“Just needed to clear some stuff up. He's fine.”

“Alright,” Sam nods, drumming his fingers on the door frame, “are you?”

“Why wouldn't I be?”

“No reason. Just checking.”

“You're the one recovering from the demon flu,” Dean points out, and Sam shakes his head as he walks away.

Narrowing his eyes at the now empty doorway, Dean contemplates trying to get another fifteen minutes of dozing in before they reinforce the wards, but it's a lost cause. He's wide awake and irritable, and any chance of sleep is shot to shit. With a hungry rumbling in his stomach, he pushes to his feet and resolves to at least have some breakfast before they get started.

* * *

By mid afternoon, the bunker is so heavily warded that Dean wouldn't be surprised if roaches can't get in any more. Following Sam's discovery of an old banishing and protection ritual in one of the Men of Letter's books, they'd burned a mixture of yarrow root, juniper and asafoetida in a brass bowl and now the entire bunker stinks like a pig farm outhouse.

“It's the asafoetida,” Castiel announces, his voice muffled through his cupped hands, “in France they call it _merde du diable_. _”_

Dean waits for someone to translate—but Castiel is squinting at the curl of smoke still rising from the bowl and Kevin is too busy laughing.

“Which is what for those of us who didn't take French?”

Castiel moves his hands away from his face to answer.

“Shit of the devil.”

Sam snorts, and immediately pulls a face when the smell hits him all over again. He covers his nose with his arm and groans.

“You didn't feel like mentioning that _before_ we lit it on fire?” Dean asks, eyes watering with the stench, and Castiel shrugs.

“I thought it would be worth it,” Castiel says, miserably, “I may have underestimated just how potent it would be.”

“Well, I vote we all get out of here for a while,” Dean says, heading for his keys, “we can drive up to Hastings, catch a movie or something, and maybe it'll have cleared by the time we get back.”

“A movie?” Sam asks doubtfully, “shouldn't we... I don't know... be doing something?”

“Like what? You said it yourself—until Crowley turns up somewhere, there's nothing we can do. He'll be licking his wounds for a while. I think we'll be safe for a few days.”

“The new Star Trek just came out,” Kevin says, looking at Sam hopefully, and Dean laughs.

“That's not gonna convince Mr Sci-fi-is-stupid, but lucky for you I've got the keys,” he says, jangling them in the air for effect, “so we're going anyway.”

* * *

Two hunters, a fallen angel and a prophet, going out to see Star Trek in a town in southern Nebraska. There's a joke there, somewhere, Dean thinks—they're too weird a group for there not to be—but whatever it is, the punchline wont come. He's too busy feeling content to come up with one. Jokes, for Dean, are sarcastic, cynical things, and this is good. This, as strange as it seems, is _comfortable_.

While Dean circles the lot behind the cinema, searching for a parking space, he glances at Castiel and Kevin in the rear view.

Kevin looks more excited than he thinks he's seen him since he'd first worked out how to close the gates of Hell, and he feels a little bad about that until he remembers last nights almost-car-theft. Bad as it is, he can understand his reasons for thinking Crowley could lead him to his mother, but it's going to take a while for him to completely forgive Kevin for planning to take off with his baby.

Beside him, staring out the window with his hands folded neatly in his lap, Castiel is wearing the same frown he's had since they got into the car an hour ago.

“Don't look so concerned, Cas,” he says, pulling into a space between a garishly painted van and a hatchback, “it's a movie, not a root canal.”

“I'm not concerned.”

“Then what's with the face?”

“It's just my face.”

Sam twists in his seat to look at the face in question, and nods.

“It's his resting frown,” he announces, and Dean laughs aloud as he pulls on the parking brake.

“What's wrong with my face?” Castiel asks, leaning forward to look in the mirror, and Dean reaches up to cover it with his hand.

“Your face is fine,” he says, still laughing, “forget I said anything.”

Castiel's frown deepens, but he stops straining to look at himself, instead reaching for the door handle and climbing out of the car.

The cinema in Hastings is in an old building with three screens, and given that it's only just gone five o'clock, there's three and a half hours until the next screening of Star Trek. They buy their tickets and head back outside to stand on the pavement, looking up and down the street and hoping a decent looking diner will just jump out and announce itself. When none do, they pick the slightly-busier end of the street and start walking. In the end, it only takes them twenty minutes to find somewhere that fits all their criteria—vegan friendly for Kevin, non-burger options for Castiel, something spicy for Sam.

Dean isn't picky; at this point, he just wants food.

Jorge's is busy, and judging by the smiling patrons, makes damn good fajitas.

“Mexican it is,” Dean says, holding open the door before anyone can change their mind, and they quickly find themselves being led to a table near the back.

“I think I'll just have nachos,” Castiel says after a while.

“You had nachos yesterday,” Dean says, and Castiel's _you don't say_ expression could rival Nic Cage.

“Exactly. I like nachos.”

“C'mon, Cas. Live a little.”

“You eat the same things constantly,” he points out, closing his menu and looking toward the kitchen door as if trying to summon a waiter through sheer will.

“Yeah, but I've _tried_ everything. You still need to try stuff.”

“Don't listen to him, Cas,” Sam says, pulling a face at Dean over his own menu, “order whatever you want.”

The waiter arrives soon after, and when it comes to Castiel's turn to order, he pauses before saying, “I'll have the Burrito Grande.”

Dean looks over at Sam smugly, and his brother rolls his eyes. Kevin suppresses a laugh, reaching over in an attempt to steal Castiel's beer, and finds his wrist caught in a hand built for smiting.

“You have soda for a reason,” Castiel tells him sternly.

“If we were pretty much anywhere in Europe—” Kevin starts, and Dean cuts him off.

“Yeah, but we're not,” he says, raising his bottle in a mock-cheers, “sucks to be you.”

It's not the first time someone has managed to telepathically communicate the phrase _fuck you_ to Dean, but he thinks it's definitely the most emphatic. He's impressed, and sends Kevin a wink for his trouble. The prophet doesn't speak to him for the rest of their meal.

When their food arrives, Castiel stares wistfully at Sam's nachos for a full three minutes before even attempting to approach the behemoth on his own plate. As far as Dean's concerned, he looks entirely too put upon for a guy with a burrito the size of his head, and after too much awkward silence, Sam pushes his half-finished plate of nachos toward him.

“You can have some if you want, Cas.”

He stares at them before shaking his head and turning his attention back to the burrito.

“That's okay,” he says, and Dean finds himself on the receiving end of what could very well be the official glare of the century from his brother.

“Jesus, Sam, quit it with the guilt-trip. He's a grown-ass man, if he wants them he'll take them.”

“Thank you, Sam,” Castiel says, not lifting his gaze from his meal, “but I'm determined to finish this, and I don't think my stomach has adequate capacity for anything else. Possibly for the rest of the week.”

“See?” Dean says, biting into another taquito and talking through it to Sam's disgust, “nothing to do with me.”

“Yeah, okay.”

They leave the restaurant with half an hour to spare, stopping at the theater's concession stand to load up on snacks. When Dean picks up licorice rope, Sam makes a gagging noise, and Dean wonders what exactly got up Sam's ass that has made him revert back to his irritating fourteen year old self today.

“What'dya want, Cas?” Sam asks, dumping his own selection on the counter.

“We just ate.”

“Yeah, but you've only filled your _savory_ stomach,” Dean explains, picking up a box of Milk Duds and tossing it toward his brother, “there's still space for sweet.”

“I only have one stomach, Dean. I think you're confusing human anatomy with cows.”

“We'll see.”

* * *

Castiel eats all the Milk Duds, and he hates the movie. More than once, he leans over to ask if they have to stay through the whole thing, caramel-scented breath warm against the side of Dean's face.

By the third time, he isn't sure whether he's more annoyed about the breath or the question.

“ _Yes_ , _we have to stay_ ,” Dean hisses back, not taking his eyes away from the screen where Kirk is slowly dying while Spock presses his hand to the glass, “quit interrupting, this part's important.”

Castiel crosses his arms, sitting back in his seat, and takes the popcorn Sam is offering him from the seat on his other side. For the rest of the movie he doesn't ask any more questions, but he also doesn't pay attention to the fucking movie, which means Dean misses the ending because he's so busy half-watching Castiel out of the corner of his eye.

The entire drive back to Lebanon, Dean keeps squinting and shaking his head.

“But it's Star Trek,” he says, for possibly the fourth time, and Sam groans from the passenger seat, knocking his forehead against the window.

“Dean, not everyone has to like Star Trek. I don't like it either.”

“But it's _Star Trek_ ,” Dean repeats.

“Are you planning to put forth any further observations, or is that your entire argument?” Castiel asks from behind him.

“I just don't get what's _not_ to like,” Dean says, raising his hands off the wheel, “Kevin, c'mon, back me up.”

“Honestly, it wasn't as good as I'd hoped,” Kevin shrugs, and if Dean wasn't driving he could throttle him, “but it was still okay I guess.”

“You're all heathens,” Dean mutters, then grimaces at the sharp look he gets from Castiel in the mirror, “sorry. Bad choice of words.”

To avoid any further foot-in-mouth moments, Dean turns on the stereo, and for the rest of the drive Jon Bon Jovi takes over.

When they get home, the bunker still stinks. The smell hits them like a physical force as soon as the door swings open, and after a floor-by-floor walk through determines that everywhere upstairs reeks, they conclude that until the asafoetida fog has cleared, they'll all have to sleep on the basement level. Kevin points out that they wouldn't have this problem if they just lived in a house with windows like normal people.

“Normal people? Glass houses, Kevin,” Sam says pointedly, and Kevin rolls his eyes.

“Dibs on the firing range,” he says, heading into his room to grab his comforter and a pillow.

Castiel takes the downstairs bathroom, sprawling in the narrow tub; Sam, the storage room. Dean spends the night in the dungeon. All in all, he thinks, it's actually not that uncomfortable. He thinks that thought should bother him more than it does.

* * *

First thing Sunday morning Dean makes his way upstairs slowly, bracing for the cloud of awful he's come to expect in the bunker over the last two and a half days—but at last, it seems that the air has cleared. He breathes in deeply, smiling in relief, and heads toward the kitchen to cook up a big breakfast before everyone wakes up.

The plan fizzles out almost immediately. Though he bought what was supposed to be a weeks supply of groceries on Thursday, they're already out of milk and eggs and bread, and the coffee is getting low enough that he's pretty sure he'll have to wrestle someone for a cup before the day is out. This, he thinks, is one of the many drawbacks of sharing a home with three other men.

He closes the fridge with an unimpressed huff and heads into his room, pulling a fresh pair of jeans from his closet. He's got them three-quarters of the way on when a voice startles him, and he nearly ends up on the floor.

“Good morning.”

Castiel is in his doorway, still half-asleep and wearing nothing but his pajama pants, presumably on his way to get dressed.

“Hey, Cas. Sleep well?”

“Not particularly. But I'll sleep better tonight,” Castiel says, gesturing vaguely around, and it takes altogether too long for Dean to work out that he means because the smell is gone and not because he's planning to sleep in Dean's room, “are you going out?”

“Yeah, we're out of breakfast stuff, and the coffee's nearly all gone. Thought I'd walk down to the store before everyone gets up.”

“Can you wait five minutes?” Castiel asks, scratching at his stomach with a yawn, and Dean tries desperately to avoid looking at the sharp line of his hipbones, “I'll come with you.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Castiel nods and wanders off down the hall. When he returns to tap on Dean's door, dressed in jeans with his dark coat unbuttoned over a blue henley, it's exactly five minutes later. Dean wonders if he's secretly carrying a stopwatch.  
  
It's drizzling outside, and as they cut through the trees at the end of the road, a bird darts through the underbrush. Dean nudges Castiel with his elbow and angles his chin toward it.

"Roadrunner," he says.

Castiel watches as it kicks up leaves.

“Be vigilant. We may find ourselves crushed by an anvil.”

Dean laughs aloud.

“Did I just witness your first pop culture reference?” he asks, pulling out his cell, “this is like, baby's first steps level shit right here.”

Castiel smirks at the ground. Dean snaps a picture.

“What's that for?”

“Posterity,” Dean says, flashing a grin, and Castiel gives him an odd look before tucking his hands into his pockets and moves forward through a gap in the trees.

They emerge from the woods, soon finding themselves on the main road, and when the corner store is in sight, Castiel stops in his tracks. Dean turns to look at him in question.

“I can't go in there.”

“Why not?”

“I'm...” Castiel looks away, avoiding eye contact, “banned from entry.”

“Banned? How could you possibly be banned? You've never _been_ here.”

“I came here while you and Sam went to find the priest in St. Louis, before Metatr-- _before_.”

“Why?”

“You needed supplies. I thought...” Castiel shrugs, trailing off, “but they were out of pie, and I overreacted.”

“Overreacted how?”

“I may have manhandled the clerk.”

“Over _pie_?” Dean asks through a laugh, and shakes his head, “I think I'm a bad influence on you.”

“It's been suggested.”

Dean laughs again, before pressing on toward the door, gesturing for Castiel to follow him.

“Come on, they won't recognize you with all that scruff.”

“Are you sure?”

“Promise. If that beard gets any longer people are gonna think you're a hobo.”

Castiel eyes him for a moment, then starts forward.

“I thought you liked my peach fuzz,” he says, scratching at his chin, and Dean stares at him, feeling his neck growing warm as he remembers the _stupid stupid stupid_ things he'd said in Purgatory.

He just counts himself lucky that Castiel is as clueless as he is, because if it had been anyone else they'd have been onto him in seconds.

“I—uh, yeah,” he clears his throat and pushes the door open, “it's fine. You look, uh, fine.”

 _Fine_ is an understatement, as far as Dean is concerned, but Castiel still doesn't look convinced. His next words make Dean want to kick himself.

“I'll shave when we get back.”

The only person in the store is a middle aged clerk, and she smiles at them in greeting when they set off the bell over the door before turning back to the shelf she's stocking. Castiel relaxes visibly, and Dean nods toward her as he picks up a basket.

“So I'm guessing she wasn't here last time?”

“No.”

“Problem solved.”

He moves through the store, getting what they need, and at some point Castiel becomes distracted and wanders off. Dean finds him in the bathroom aisle, sniffing at a bottle of vanilla and coconut conditioner.

“This is much nicer than the one we have at home,” he announces, and Dean can't help the grin that splits his face at the sound of Castiel calling the bunker home.

He's so floored, in fact, that instead of telling Castiel that they don't buy the fancy hair care products because they're meant for girls, and on occasion, Sam, he just holds out the basket.

“We'll get it then.”

The store clerk rings them up and waves them off with a, “See you boys next time,” and Dean smiles at her as he holds open the door. He sincerely hopes she will. That this will become a thing they do; walking to the store together in the morning. It's just _nice_ , and he doesn't get that too often.

It's when they're waiting to cross the street that Dean glances back and notices the art supply store next door, and he has an idea.

“Hey, I'll be right back.”

“Where are you going?”

“No peeking.”

“What—”

“Two minutes.”

He hurries into the store, and he's back outside with ten seconds to spare and a paper bag clutched under his arm. Castiel looks at it with a frown that only grows more perplexed when Dean holds it out to him and swaps it for the plastic bag of shampoo, conditioner and disposable razors.

“What is it?”

“A present,” Dean says, grateful for the lights suddenly flashing green and giving him an excuse to walk, because now that he's done it he feels like a moron.

 Behind him he can hear Castiel opening the bag as he walks across the street, and when they reach the other side Castiel grabs hold of his shoulder and pulls him into an awkward hug, the bags crushed between them.

 When he pulls away, he looks so damn touched that Dean feels his cheeks burning, embarrassed by the gratitude in Castiel's eyes.

“You said you might try drawing,” he says with a shrug, trying to play it off as nothing, but Castiel keeps on smiling at him the whole way back.

Through breakfast, he sits at the end of the table in the library with the sketchbook open, pencils spread out before him, and while he swipes his pancakes through maple syrup, he thumbs through the different colors. Dean tries not to smile too much. Shoveling entire pancakes into his mouth seems to do the trick.

“Nobody's trying to take them off you, Dean,” Sam tells him, cutting his own breakfast into tiny squares, “you're gonna choke.”

“No I won't,” Dean says, and because the universe is a cruel, cruel thing that likes to prove him wrong, he does.

Kevin, walking behind him, thumps him hard on the back as soon as he does, and a lump of pancake flies out from where it was lodged in his windpipe, hitting the table with a splat.

“Not a word,” Dean says to Sam, pointing at him with his fork, “thanks, Kevin.”

“Guess you'll have to forgive me now,” Kevin says, moving on toward the kitchen with his empty plate, “since I saved your life and all.”

Castiel doesn't actually pick up a pencil until they've finished eating, and they all leave him to it. Hovering in the doorway, Dean can just make out a wide, swooping curve of cobalt running across two pages, but as soon as Castiel realizes he's there he closes the book. As much as he wants to see, Dean decides not to ask. If he wants to share with the rest of the class, he will.

With nothing else to do, he heads off to find Kevin with a plan to commandeer his laptop.

“What do you need it for?”

“Wanna see if that creek leads anywhere,” he says, reaching out to take the computer that Kevin is shielding from him, “c'mon it won't take long.”

“I'll look.”

“Just let me—”

“I'll be faster.”

True or not, it's still slightly irritating, and Dean leans over Kevin's shoulder as he opens Google Earth and enters their location. Even zoomed in as far as they can go, the creek bed itself is barely even visible—a dried up, narrow thing emerging from one of the only patches of trees in the area—and it leads absolutely nowhere. There's not a single significant body of water for miles, but, determined, Dean insists on taking a hike along the creek to double check.  
  
Kevin has no interest in what he deems a pointless exercise; Sam and Castiel decide to tag along for something to do.

Dean's waiting at the front door, eager to get going, when Castiel ascends the stairs, his maroon blanket hanging over his shoulders. Dean raises an eyebrow.  
  
“You do know that's a blanket, right?”

 “It's comfortable."

“It's a _blanket_.”

“Didn't stop you from wearing one,” Sam calls out, crossing the war room below, and Dean points an angry finger at him over the balcony.

 “That was a serape!”

 “Popular opinion says otherwise,” Castiel says, and Sam's responding laugh echoes through the bunker.

Dean shoves the door open with a frown and steps outside, just managing to hold the expression until he's out of their sight, and a grin splits wide over his face. It's difficult to be annoyed at either of them when their casual teasing means they are both okay, but they don't have to know that.  
  
It feels good to be out in the cool air, trudging through the leaves. Bright purple thistles push through the earth among the oaks and elms. Castiel pricks his fingers picking them and slips the flowers into his pocket, the blanket whipping around in the breeze.

"I like it out here," Castiel says, "perhaps I'll walk up here to draw."  
  
"We'll have to get you a new cell," Dean says, and when Castiel looks at him in confusion, he explains, "in case you get lost or something."

They walk further along the creek bed, seeing no sign of water, and Dean refuses to acknowledge the fact that Kevin was probably right.

“You know Cas, there's a greenhouse behind the bunker,” Sam says, hands in his pockets as he watches Castiel picking leaves, “it's kind of a mess right now, but maybe we can clean it up, grow some stuff.”

“That's a good idea,” Castiel says, looking up from where he's kneeling by the creek bed, “perhaps if we grew some vegetables, Dean would actually cook them.”

“Hey, smart-ass, what do you think mashed potatoes are made of?”

 “You said ass, _again_ ,” Castiel says pointedly.

Dean glares at him, and Sam laughs.

“I think I liked you better when you weren't talking," he says, stomping forward through the dried up underbrush and hiding his grin.

They spend over an hour following the creek bed before Dean finally concedes defeat and suggests they head back before the whole day is wasted. Sam claps him on the shoulder.

"There's plenty of lakes just past the Nebraska border," he points out, "you can always take a day trip if you're that desperate to go fishing."  
  
"Not the same," Dean mutters, dejected, and spends the rest of the hike having a silent pity party for one while Sam and Castiel enthusiastically discuss which vegetables they are going to grow.

When they eventually arrive back at the bunker, Dean's head is a swimming mess of carrots and zucchini and roma tomatoes. He jumps into the Impala, telling them he'll be back soon before either have a chance to ask where he's going, and aims south for Cawker City.

He arrives back at the bunker just shy of two hours later, the car weighed down with bags of potting mix and fertilizer and seedlings. On the front passenger seat is a new cell phone and a tiny yellow-flowered cactus he'd bought at a gas station on his way back. There's a cartoon bee on the pot that made him think of Castiel, but if anyone asks that is definitely not the reason he bought it.

He blares the horn when he gets home, and makes the others carry everything into the greenhouse.

"I bought it all," he says, cracking open a beer and leaning against the greenhouse wall as they lug in bags, "it's only fair you guys do the heavy lifting."

"You could have at least told us where you were going," Sam tells him with a huff, "we would have cleared this place out."

Dean just shrugs, grinning.

"The day is young, Sammy," he says, taking a pull of his beer.  
  
"You're an ass."

"I hope you're keeping track of his _asses_ , too, Cas. It's only fair."

Castiel actually laughs aloud, keeps laughing with mouth wide and gums showing. Sam stops, dropping a heavy bag of fertilizer on the ground, and grins over at Dean. In all the years they've known him, aside from those hollow chuckles and the desperate smiles he'd cracked in the Indiana State Hospital, they've never seen him like this. Never _heard_ him like this.

 His laugh is loud and warm and rumbling, bouncing off the walls around them, and it sounds like healing. Dean can't remember ever hearing something so perfect. He thinks it might heal him, too.

 

* * *

  
In one of the storage rooms on the lower level, there's a wall made up of hundreds of drawers, and a couple of days later, while Sam is jogging around the block and Castiel and Kevin are upstairs loudly debating the plausibility of time travel using a faster-than-light spacecraft, Dean picks through them. Occasionally, he catches snippets of their argument floating down the stairs; Kevin shouting about negative mass and Castiel telling him that he knows for a fact that there's no such thing.  
  
Dean told them he was coming down here to catalog the bunkers contents. If he's being completely honest though, he's just treasure hunting.

Something about digging through relics in the dusty lower rooms of the bunker makes him feel like Indiana Jones. Dean thinks he'd look damn good in a faded fedora with a bull whip on his belt, and it's not just an offshoot of his totally non-existent cowboy fetish, no matter what Sam might say. For one thing, everybody knows Indy is an archaeologist, and _that_ fetish is entirely separate. And equally non-existent.  
  
He's been climbing up and down the storage room's rolling ladder for nearly an hour when he pulls open a drawer near the ceiling and finds a blue stone. It's flecked through with gold and carved into a shape like a teardrop, engraved with a glyph, and it has a small hole at the widest end that tells him it was made to be worn on a cord around the neck. It's edges are worn and rounded with age, and according to the handwritten card stuck to the inside of the drawer, it's a healing pendant made of lapis lazuli that dates back to around 2300 BC.

  _Most people have old paint cans in their basements_ , he thinks with a grin, _this place is awesome._  
  
His hand warms the stone quickly, and it's a pleasant weight in his palm. He heads upstairs without even thinking about it.  
  
Sam's still out, running for far longer than anyone should without something chasing them, and Kevin has retreated to his room to play some variety of computer game that has him loudly shouting “Heal! HEAL!” into his headset. He finds Castiel sitting at the table in the library, his sketchbook open before him. The air smells of wood-shavings and charcoal, and Castiel looks up when he walks in, closing the book again.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean says, crossing the room, “I found something for you.”

 “You did?”

 “Yep,” Dean leans against the table beside him, holding out the stone, “thought you might like it.”

Castiel takes it, holding it below the table lamp to look at it in the light.

“It's lapis lazuli, so I figured... y'know,” Dean shrugs, a little embarrassed.

At once, he becomes extremely aware of the fact that he keeps giving things to Castiel. When it was just the clothes and the toothbrush and the blanket and the lamp, it was _fine_ , because those were all things he needed, and someone had to get them for him. Even the art supplies could be passed off as necessary, considering they were a way to help Castiel cope with becoming human.  
  
But now he's bringing him things for no reason beyond the fact that they remind him of Castiel. The amulet, the books about gardening, the stupid bumblebee cactus.

 _I have to stop_ , he thinks, but then he looks down at Castiel's awe-filled face, the way he's turning the stone over in his palm and smiling, and he knows he's not going to. He's utterly screwed.

“This is Sumerian,” Castiel says, tracing over the engraving with his thumb, “the word _luh_.”

It's a guttural sound, finishing somewhere in the back of Castiel's throat, and Dean raises his brow.

“It means to purify,” Castiel tells him, “I love it, Dean. Thank you.”

 “Hey, no big. Want to come help with dinner?”

 “Of course.”

 “Alright.”

 

* * *

Dean pulls a wrapped paper package of shrimp out of the fridge as Sam wanders in to grab a drink, finally back from his run.

“What are you guys making?” he asks, breathing hard as he unscrews the cap on his water bottle, eying the bacon and tortillas on the counter with suspicion.

 “Bacon-wrapped buffalo shrimp tacos,” Dean says.

Sam looks at him like he's grown a third arm.

“Is that even a thing?”

 “Saw them on a menu years ago,” Dean shrugs, handing him a beer before digging around in the vegetable drawer for a head of lettuce and a couple of tomatoes, “always wished I'd ordered them.”

 “But do you know how to _make_ them?”

 “Uh, yeah,” Dean says, tipping the shrimp into a mixing bowl, “you wrap buffalo shrimp in bacon and put 'em in tacos.”

Sam frowns, looking over at Castiel who is carefully grating a block of cheddar cheese.

“Right,” he says doubtfully.

 “They're gonna be awesome,” Dean promises, pulling the cap off a bottle of buffalo marinade and pouring it over the shrimp with a flourish, “you'll see.”

Sam leaves them to it, and as they cook, Dean's mouth waters. The tacos smell amazing. When they're almost done, he tells Castiel as much.  
  
Ten minutes later, Dean is spitting onto his plate and rinsing his mouth out with beer, because the tacos are _not_ amazing. They're not even edible.

"What the hell did you _do_ to this shrimp?" Sam asks, his eyes watering as he takes a massive swig of his drink, "They taste cursed."

While Kevin happily eats the vegan version of their meal, smiling around his mouthful of soy-based taco, Dean drives to the nearest pizza place.

"You want to add a six pack of buffalo wings for three ninety-nine?" the kid at the counter asks him, and Dean's stomach turns.  
  
"Just the pizza.”

 Castiel hugs him again when he gets back, before he's had a chance to call Sam. It's brief, and Dean isn't entirely sure what it's for, but he hugs back all the same. He's just glad nobody is around to see the look on his face as he squeezes him back.

* * *

  
Charlie arrives early on Saturday afternoon, and when Dean pulls open the front door he finds her bent double under the weight of too many bags, a pair of oversize sunglasses half falling off her nose. She looks up at him, pushing at the glasses with her forearm.

“You're only here a couple days, right?” he asks, and she rolls her eyes.

“Less snark, more helping.”

Laughing, he reaches out to take a couple of bags, and she groans in relief, cracking her shoulders. Taking off the sunglasses and sticking them in the one bag she's still carrying, she grins.

“It's mainly computer stuff,” she explains, “for security.”

“C'mon,” he says, stepping back to let her in, and they head downstairs where Castiel and Kevin have come out to meet them. Sam is a few seconds behind them, still drying his hair from a shower, and he beams at her.

“Charlie!” he exclaims, dumping the towel, “I thought you weren't coming until later.”

“I finished up in Topeka earlier than I thought.”

She dumps her bag on the table and hugs Sam and Dean, before rounding on Castiel and Kevin.

“Anyone planning to introduce me?” she asks.

“Kevin,” Kevin says, sticking out his hand, and she waves it away, giving him a hug, “nice to meet you.”

When Castiel doesn't say anything, Dean clears his throat.

“And this is Cas,” he says, gesturing toward him, “obviously.”

“You have a good soul,” he tells her when she releases him from what really should have been the most awkward hug in the world, and she flushes bright red.

“Ahh, shut your mouth,” she says, grinning, before looking over at Dean, “I can see why you guys like him so much.”

For nearly twenty minutes Charlie and Castiel sit in the war room, huddled together and talking about string theory, of all things, and with a petty kind of jealousy that makes less sense the more he thinks about it, Dean tells them to get a room.  
  
Castiel is confused by the comment until Charlie explains it to him, and then he looks at her, mortified.

“Oh! No, I didn't mean to— I'm not—”

Charlie shakes her head, patting him on the shoulder.

“It's just an expression, Cas. Dean's being facetious.”

 “Oh,” Castiel says, throwing a half-hearted glare in Dean's direction.

Dean laughs at them and heads into the kitchen to get started on dinner. Castiel follows shortly after, and while they cook side by side, Charlie and Kevin bond over World of Warcraft and their mutual and intense hatred of Dick Roman. Sam hovers around the kitchen until Dean tells him to either keep out of the way or make himself useful, so he heads back into the library to ask what the difference between night and blood elves is.  
  
They make lasagne—Castiel putting together a smaller one with eggplant and tofu instead of meat and cheese for Kevin—and garlic bread, along with a Greek salad and salted caramel pie. When they bring it all out, Charlie lets out an impressed whistle.

“Holy frakk, this smells _good_ ,” she says, reaching across the table to scoop some salad onto her plate, “did you guys make all this from scratch?”

 “Damn right we did.”

 “Cooking is fairly easy if you follow the instructions,” Castiel tells her, putting Kevin's lasagne in front of him, “though Dean often makes it up as he goes. It usually works out.”

“Usually?” Dean asks, affronted, and Castiel looks at him pointedly.

“Bacon-wrapped buffalo shrimp tacos,” he says, and Sam nods, his face pinched in disgust at the memory.

Dean sits down, frowning, and grabs the best piece of garlic bread off the plate before Sam can get his giant mitts on it.

“In my defense, they sounded delicious,” he says, handing the piece of bread over to Castiel.

“And I'm sure they would have been if you'd followed a recipe,” Castiel tells him, taking it and putting it on the side of his plate before piling on a mountain of salad.

 Through the exchange, Charlie watches the two of them with a slightly raised brow, but as soon as Dean makes eye contact she wipes it away. Thankfully, Kevin speaks before it gets awkward.

“The tempeh tacos were good,” he offers through a mouthful of lasagne, “so the meal wasn't a _complete_ failure.”

“Thanks, Kevin,” Dean says, “nice to know someone around here appreciates—”

“I made the tempeh ones,” Castiel points out.

“Shut up.”

After dinner, announcing that Castiel needs a _legit_ ID--or at least, one that's listed in the official system just in case--Charlie goes about committing a rapid succession of crimes that Dean sincerely hopes nobody ever finds out about. There's felonies, and then there's _felonies_.

“You sure this isn't gonna get red-flagged?” he asks, staring at her computer screen.

"Please," she says, arching her brow, "you think this is my first rodeo?"  
  
"My most sincere apologies, little lady," Dean says in his best Texan drawl, and Kevin lets out a loud laugh from the other side of the room.

They all turn to look at him.

"Just--can you _imagine_ them at a rodeo?" Kevin asks Charlie, and after briefly considering, she laughs.

 "Dean trying to get his hands on a cowboy hat, Sam hiding from the clowns."  
  
"Cas trying to free the bulls," Kevin agrees, still laughing.  
  
"I _would_ try to free the bulls," Castiel says, apparently impressed with Kevin's reasoning, and Dean narrows his eyes at him before turning to Sam.

 "Why did we ever let any of them meet each other?"

By the time Charlie's done, as far as the US government is concerned, Castiel is a thirty-six year old Kansas native named Castiel Constantine—a surname suggested by Charlie, endorsed thoroughly by Kevin, and agreed on by Castiel when they'd gone online to show him the comic series with it's trench-coated titular character.

* * *

  
Dean's making the promised pancakes for breakfast the next day, Charlie sitting at the counter with a mug of peppermint tea warming her hands, when Castiel walks into the kitchen and slips his arms around Dean's middle, his chin on Dean's shoulder.  
  
He nearly drops the spatula.

“Whoa, hey there,” he says, putting it down and turning to make the hug less like vertical spooning, “you okay?”

 “Nightmares,” Castiel says, and Dean squeezes him, hands flat against his shoulder blades, "you were... I couldn't save you."

He doesn't notice that his eyes have slipped closed until Castiel lets out a shuddering sigh and pulls away a few moments later, and he scrubs roughly at his jaw as he turns back to the stove. He's almost positive Charlie saw his face, and in classic Dean style, he's pretending there was nothing to see.

“You want some?” he asks, indicating the pancakes.

 “Are you going to make bacon?”

He's still close enough that Dean can feel his breath in his hair, the warmth of him radiating along the length of Dean's back. Dean ignores it. It's a skill he's well on the way to perfecting.

“I will now,” he says brightly.

 “Then yes, thank you.”

Castiel squeezes his forearm briefly before he leaves with a smile, presumably heading back to his room to dress, and when Dean glances back to watch him go he sees Charlie looking over her mug with interest. She quickly schools her expression as she takes a sip, and Dean yanks open the fridge, pulling out a package of bacon.

“You want bacon, too?”

 “Sure,” she says, and there's a brief moment when she hesitates, her mouth half open, that Dean is certain she's going to say something.

Instead she just smiles and takes a sip of her tea, looking toward the door as a sleep-addled Kevin wanders in, making a beeline for the fridge.

 After that, Dean's on edge, waiting for what he thinks is an inevitable ambush. He figures she'll corner him in the library, or physically drag him into the room she slept in and demand he confess to his Big Gay Love. But she doesn't.

Dean is half relieved, half annoyed, because he'd kind of been assuming that she'd just _know_ , and then he'd at least have someone to talk to about it. Not that he wants to talk about it. Or, he does—but what would he even _say_?

As he tries to sleep that night, he considers bringing it up himself the next day, but he can't think of a way to casually work it into conversation. He tosses and turns, barely getting two hours of rest, and gets up at five with a plan to vegetate on the sofa until everyone else gets up.

Charlie is already there. With Castiel. They are both lounging at opposite ends, feet up with the maroon blanket over their legs, and still dressed in their clothes from the day before. They're talking quietly, and when they hear him shuffle in they look up, falling silent.

“Have you guys been up all night?” he asks, trying not to be jealous and failing, and Charlie frowns, reaching over to pick up her cell.

When she sees the time, she lets out a quiet, _huh_.

“I thought it was like two,” she says with a yawn, “guess time got away from us.”

“What've you been talking about?”

“Human stuff,” Charlie shrugs, and the topic is promptly dropped in favor of arguing over who has to make the coffee.  
  
The rest of the morning is taken up by Charlie and Kevin working out a nationwide version of the police log alert system, explaining it in detail to Sam and Dean, and to a lesser extent, Castiel, who seems preoccupied with his sketchbook at the other end of the table. There's no opportunity for talking to her in private, and when she leaves on Monday afternoon, they all head out into the road to see her off.

With Castiel standing close as ever by his side, watching Charlie's yellow car until it disappears around the corner, Dean has the sinking feeling that he's never going to get through this.

* * *

  
The day after Charlie leaves, Dean wakes up at five in the morning with the sudden realization that Castiel has been human for more than two weeks and he still doesn't have an anti-possession tattoo. He can't believe the level of his oversight, and in horror he runs over the countless times that Castiel has been outside the safe walls of the bunker, unprotected. He could have been taken. He could have been lost.  
  
He manages to curb his panic for three hours, fingers drumming restlessly on his mattress, but at eight he pushes out of bed with a grunt and walks down the hall to Castiel's door, shoving it open as he speaks.

“Rise and shine, sleepyhea—”

The word dies in his mouth when he sees Castiel, open-mouthed and panting, his heels digging into the mattress as he arches his back, hips stuttering upward beneath the sheets. Dean pulls the door shut and retreats, stumbling down the hall in a daze and trying to put the image out of his mind.

 He fails horribly.  
  
Twenty-five minutes later, he's in the kitchen relentlessly stirring nothing into his coffee, telling himself to _stop thinking stop thinking stop thinking_ , when Castiel walks in, dressed in the jeans and the plaid shirt Dean bought him, the hair at the back of his head sticking up at every angle from where it was pressing into his pillow. Pressing into his pillow. _Pressing into his fucking pillow._ Dean gulps.

“Good morning,” he says casually, as if Dean hadn't just walked in on him going to town on his morning wood, "what did you want?"

As Castiel pulls open the fridge, Dean shuts his eyes, taking a deep breath through his nose to calm down. He decides to follow Castiel's lead. Pretend it didn't happen. Perfect. He's good at avoidance.

“You need an anti-possession tattoo."

 “Okay,” Castiel says with a yawn, stretching his arms up over his head and arching his back in the process, and Dean's brain short circuits.

 _Nope_ , he thinks, _can't do it._

“Sorry about before, I uh...”

 “It's no bother,” Castiel pours himself a glass of orange juice and rolls his neck, “everyone does it. It's just part of being human, right?”

Dean goes bright red and hates himself a little.

“Yeah," Dean croaks, avoiding eye contact, "yeah, I guess so.”

 Taking a sip of his juice, Castiel turns to lean against the counter by the sink.

 “Perhaps just knock next time."

  _Next time_ , Dean thinks, _how often does he_ —

 "Am I getting the tattoo today?” he asks before Dean can finish the thought, “should I wake Sam and Kevin?”

 “Yeah. To uh, both. See if they wanna come. With us. To the tattoo place.”

Castiel drains his glass and puts it in the sink before he leaves, and Dean's left sitting in the kitchen with no idea how he's meant to ever look at the guy again without picturing him with that expression on his face.

 On the upside, he'll have something new to picture when he—no. No no no no _no_.

  _Bad idea, Winchester_ , he thinks, _you've managed this long without going down that creepy fucking road, and you can keep on managing. Porn exists for a reason._  
  
Once his head clears enough, he makes a couple of calls and eventually finds a tattoo artist in Junction City with an opening at one that afternoon.

 Typically though, the one time that he desperately wants someone to encroach on his alone time with Castiel, Sam and Kevin decide not to tag along.

 "You sure, Sam?” he asks a little desperately when they're about to leave, and his brother yawns, tying his boot laces.

 “Nah, I'm gonna try and get some more work done in the greenhouse. Go ask Kevin.”

 He does, but it's pointless.

“I've got stuff to do,” Kevin says vaguely, staring intently at a massive word document on his laptop screen, “go ask Sam.”

“Already did,” Dean mutters, walking away, and finds Castiel waiting impatiently near the bottom of the stairs.

“It's just the two of us, then?” Castiel asks, and Dean nods, still unable to really look at him.  
  
The two and a half hour drive is painful, despite Castiel's apparent lack of shame, or perhaps because of it. Dean turns up the volume on the stereo to discourage conversation until he can put the morning out of his mind.  
  
Castiel just shouts over it to be heard, and Dean wonders what exactly it is about being human that has made him so damn chatty.

“Are you hungry?” Castiel asks, just barely audible over the roar of Metallica, “do you think we'll have time to eat first?”

 “Nope,” Dean says, turning the volume louder.

By the time they arrive at Aeonian Ink, a tiny brick building at the end of a mostly vacated shopping strip, the Impala's windows are rattling with the force of the speakers. The silence when Dean cuts the engine is jarring, and it follows them all the way to the door.  
  
The bell tinkles when they push it open, and a skinny twenty-something hipster looks up from his magazine at the counter. Castiel stumbles over his new surname, but the guy finds it in the book by the phone and directs him into the back room. Dean hesitates in the waiting room until Castiel looks back at him expectantly, and he follows them in. The artist looks the design over before scanning it onto a thermal paper, ready to transfer onto Castiel's skin as an outline.

“Where d'you want it?”

“Here,” Castiel says without pause, reaching over his shoulder to tap his fingers just below the nape of his neck, right between his shoulder blades, and Dean wonders when he'd even had a chance to think about it, “in the middle.”

The next hour goes by in a haze of pained hisses and stilted conversation when the tattoo artist—Marcus—asks Castiel questions he hasn't yet made up answers for.

“So, what do you do for work?”

“I don't.”

Marcus frowns in confusion, slowly beginning to fill in the lines with black ink.

“At the moment,” Dean interjects before Castiel can say anything else, “he doesn't work at the moment. He's—”

“A bodyguard,” Castiel says suddenly, and Dean looks down at him, barely stopping himself from laughing aloud.

“Cool,” Marcus says, nodding, “ever guarded anyone important?”

“Dean.”

Dean smiles awkwardly when Marcus glances up at him.

“But not anymore?”

“Not for years,” Castiel says.

“He fire you or something?”

“I made some judgment errors, and the...” Castiel pauses in his story, searching for the right lie, “the company dissolved.”

“Oh, that sucks.”

“It does. But I still have Dean, so that's something.”

Marcus looks up at Dean again with a smile, and Dean wants to say something along the lines of _it's not how he's making it sound._ Except that on his end it kind of is, and as loathe as he is to admit it, it's nice to pretend. He smiles back, and they move on.

When they leave, Castiel holding his shoulders a little stiffly to avoid the uncomfortable feeling of his shirt moving against the tender skin, Dean's stomach rumbles. Unlocking the Impala, he looks at Castiel over the roof.

"You still hungry, Cas?"

Castiel nods, grimacing when his skin pulls tight.

"Yes," he says, pulling open the door and sinking gingerly into the passenger seat, "how long is it going to take to stop stinging?"

Dean glances across at him with a smirk.

"Not long."  
  
"Why are you smiling?"  
  
"I'm not."  
  
"It _hurts_ , Dean."  
  
"I know, I know."

He starts the car, and the stereo comes on with a blast, deafeningly loud. Castiel flinches, and hisses under his breath.

“Shit,” Dean mutters, turning it down, “sorry.”

“It's fine,” he says.

“Let's get something to eat. Take your mind off it.”

They stop at a diner in Junction City before the long drive back, and in a booth by the window they order potato skins and buffalo wings.

“Why'd you get the tattoo on your neck, anyway?” Dean asks, still curious, and Castiel begins to shrug before remembering that it will hurt and stopping with one shoulder half raised.

“Should I have asked to have it somewhere else?”

“No, just wondering.”

“I don't have to see it,” he says, and Dean looks at him in confusion, “it's... I'm getting used to this. Humanity. And I... it's getting easier. I'm actually... sometimes I think I'm actually happy. Like now, and when we're cooking, and in the greenhouse, but it's still... I miss it. What I used to be. _Who_ I used to be. Having a visual reminder of my weakness would not have helped.”

“You're not weak, Cas.”

“ _Baby in a trench coat_ ,” he says, picking up his glass and draining it, and Dean frowns, “that's what you said. Without my powers I'm a baby in a trench coat. Though, I suppose I'm not even that, now.”

“When did I say that?”

“Years ago. While we were tracking Eve.”

“Well, I didn't mean it.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Then I was a fucking idiot. Seriously, Cas. Listen. You're not weak. You're handling this shit better than anyone would, and I'm not just saying that because I—because we're friends.”

 _Fuck_ , he thinks, pausing for breath, _calm down. That was a little too close._

“I'm not weak,” Castiel agrees, “but I am weaker. It may not be the best approach, but I'd rather avoid thinking about it as much as possible. Do you understand?”

“I get it.”

“Can we talk about something else, now?”

“Like what?”

“I'd like to learn to drive. And shoot. And... well, basically everything. All the parts of being human. I want you to teach me.”

Dean's mind has no sense of tact, it seems, because the words _all the parts of being human_ drag back the image he'd walked in on this morning, and he takes far too long to string a coherent sentence together.

“It can wait, though,” Castiel adds, and Dean shakes his head to clear it.

“No, no you're right. You should learn. I'll teach you. We can start this week.”

Their food arrives shortly after, and Dean is grateful for something to focus on until Castiel starts making small sounds of pleasure with every second bite. Dean takes a sip of his root beer and tries not to listen.

“So you like them?” he asks pointlessly, hoping conversation will at least make him stop.

“Mmm,” nodding, Castiel licks the sauce from his fingers and reaches for another wing, “if the buffalo shrimp tacos had tasted anything like _this_ —”

“Cas, I swear to God if you mention those tacos one more time I'm never cooking for you again.”

Castiel snorts, dipping the wing into the bowl of ranch dressing and taking a bite.

“I'm serious,” Dean says, and Castiel tries and fails to look contrite.

“Okay, Dean.”

Their waitress, returning to top up their drinks, gives Dean the _you're such a cute couple_ face, and he wants to crawl under the table and die. She's fucking right.


	4. Messages

They've been driving a few minutes, the traffic thinning as they head out of Junction City, when Castiel reaches down to the stereo dial. Axl Rose is cut off halfway through the opening refrain of _November Rain_ , and Dean glances over to find Castiel watching him from the passenger seat. There's a hesitant air to his expression, as though he's searching for words. In Dean's experience that's never a good sign. The silence is stifling.

“Have you heard anything?” Castiel asks, finally, and Dean waits a few seconds for the rest of the question. When it doesn't come, he raises his brow.

“Wanna vague that up a little, Cas?”

Castiel frowns at his sarcasm, and a childish part of Dean considers it a victory.

“About my brothers and sisters.”

Slowing to stop at an intersection, Dean turns in his seat to face him fully. For once Castiel seems unable to hold eye contact—he looks away, out the window, down at his hands in his lap, restlessly twisting. It's horrible. Worse than the implication of his words, and those words had stung.

“You really think I'd keep that from you?”

Castiel looks up to study him, as if he actually has to think about it. As if he still doesn't understand that Dean trusts him, that he cares about him. That hurts more than he'd like to admit.

“I just think it's strange. We should have heard somethingby now, surely.”

“Yeah, I've been thinking the same thing,” Dean admits with a sigh, moving forward through a break in traffic and onto the main road out of town.

They're quiet for a while, just the steady thrum of asphalt rushing beneath the Impala, the rumble of the engine, but Dean can feel something brewing in the silence. It's like ozone before a storm, making the air dense, and as the storefronts give way to houses and then fields, he feels it growing heavier. He tries to think of something, some topic of conversation that will steer them away from this extra tension that their relationship needs like a hole in the head, but Castiel speaks again before he can settle on one.

“I want to start looking for them.”

“That why you want to learn to drive?” Dean asks, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his gut, “so you can go find them?”

 _So you can leave_ , is what he's really thinking, and he knows how pathetic it is. The fear of abandonment is hard-wired into his brain, though. Fighting it is pointless.

“I want to drive so that you and Sam can get more sleep between hunts,” he says, and Dean exhales, his relief at Castiel not looking for a way to leave them so great he feels ten pounds lighter, “but if you don't want to accompany me, being able to drive would certainly be more practical than taking a bus.”

Dean pulls a face, not even bothering to deign the notion that he would willingly send Castiel off to hunt them down on his own with a response.

“No point in us hauling ass all over the country without knowing who we're looking for,” he points out, “we'll work on your human stuff, keep keepin' an eye out for anything angel-y, and go from there.”

“And you'll teach me to hunt?”

“Yeah,” he says, “of course.”

“We can start tomorrow,” Castiel says, and when Dean can't think of a single good reason to put it off, he nods, “good.”

Castiel flicks the stereo back on, and returning his gaze to the road ahead, Dean adjusts his grip on the wheel. 

_Tomorrow_ , he thinks with a sigh. The down time was nice while it lasted.

 

* * *

 

In the morning, much to Castiel's obvious irritation, Dean is reluctant to let him actually fire a gun.

It's not that he thinks Castiel is incapable. 

The dude is a fucking badass, and Dean doesn't doubt that Castiel could still kick his butt in hand-to-hand combat—grace or no. It's more that he doesn't want to think about where it will lead. What it could lead to. Because once he's good with human weapons, once he can drive a car and navigate the world with ease, he'll be ready to start hunting. Fighting. He'll be back in the fray, in the firing line. Dean hates the thought.

He remembers Castiel in hospital slippers, telling him that he didn't want to fight, that he was _tired_ of fighting, and wonders what changed. If it's only because of him and Sam that Castiel even wants to do this.

Not for the first time, he wishes that he had some idea of how to live a normal life, if for no other reason than so Castiel and Sam would be safe. But it's not up to him. He understands, now, especially after the last year, that it's not his responsibility. Their decisions are their own. 

As much as he hates it, he has to respect it.

Still, he spends the first half of the day instructing Castiel as he dismantles and reassembles various guns, stripping them down to their base components to learn the names of all the parts, how to clean them, how to fix a jam. 

Unfortunately for him, Castiel is a good student, and masters the basics of maintenance and safety far too soon for Dean's liking.

“How about we pick back up after lunch?” Dean asks, putting off the actual shooting for a couple more hours if he can, “We'll come right back down after.”

Ejecting the magazine from the pistol in his hand, Castiel puts it down on the bench before turning a suspicious eye on Dean.

“And then I can start with the targets?”

Dean grunts out a yes, but it's a non-committal sound, and Castiel frowns as he follows him into the hallway. 

“Why are you stalling?” he asks, and Dean hates how damn perceptive he is.

“I'm not,” he lies, pausing at the bottom of the stairs and gesturing for Castiel to go ahead of him, “I'm just hungry.”

Dean isn't sure he's ever seen someone look less convinced. Still, Castiel buckles, heading up the stairs with an irritated huff.

When they get to the kitchen, Kevin is already there, stirring a pot of soup.

“You can cook?” Dean asks, brow raised as he makes his way over to the stove.

“I can open soup cans.”

“He burns toast, too,” Castiel says, pointing, and Kevin wheels around to hit the button on the toaster, flapping his hand over it as smoke winds up to the ceiling.

“Dammit.”

“We can't all be culinary geniuses,” Dean tells him, grabbing the spoon from the counter to try the soup, “what is this, tomato?”

Kevin takes another couple of cans from the cupboard and hands them over without a word, and Dean takes over. After adding a little rice to the pot there's more than enough to go around.

“Sammy!” Dean bellows out the kitchen door, ladling the soup into bowls, “lunch!”

While they all eat, crowded around one end of the library table, Sam looks through news reports on his laptop.

“Any sign of Crowley?” Dean asks him, and he shakes his head.

“Nothing.”

“Huh,” Dean says, scraping rice from the bottom of his bowl, “I can't decide if that's good news or not.”

“I think I found a hunt, though,” Sam tells them, breaking his toast in two, “down in Wichita.”

“A hunt?” Dean asks him, dubious, “You sure you're feeling up to it?”

Sam rolls his eyes.

“Dean, I'm _fine_. I'm just kinda sick of being cooped up here, y'know?”

“What's the hunt?” Kevin asks.

“Poltergeist, I'm pretty sure. Easy salt and burn. I can take care of it solo, or—”

“Yeah, right. Not gonna happen.”

“ _Or_ ,” Sam goes on, “you can come with. It's only like three hours away, so if we leave first thing and find the remains fast enough we can be there and back by Friday.”

“I'd like to come,” Castiel says, and Dean shakes his head.

“No offense, Cas, but you're not quite there yet. You'll do more harm than good.”

He regrets it the moment he's said it, and the matching looks of reproach Sam and Kevin are giving him let him know that it definitely did sound as bad as he thinks it did. Castiel, crestfallen, stirs the soup around in his bowl, and Dean scrambles to make up for it.

“Obviously you're more than capable of kicking ass, but I just mean... you're not... you could get _hurt,_ Cas,” he finishes lamely, before looking to his brother, “C'mon, back me up on this.”

“He's right, Cas. Let us deal with this one real quick, and when the next hunt comes around we'll make sure you're ready.”

“Besides,” Dean adds, “someone needs to stick around to make sure Kevin doesn't burn the place down trying to make toast.”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Kevin groans, “it wasn't even on fire.”

Castiel's mouth ticks up at one side, and he nods. He doesn't look particularly happy about it, but the miserable expression is gone from his face. Dean nudges him with his elbow to make him look up.

“Just want to make sure you're firing on all cylinders first, that's all. Don't want you to end up ghost-food.”

“Ghosts don't eat people.”

Dean rolls his eyes.

“You know what I mean.”

“I know.”

When they return to the firing range, Dean knows he can't put it off any longer. He looks over the spread of guns, deciding which to begin with, and his eyes settle on the Colt 1851 Navy Sam had brought back from their trip to the old west. It's a nice gun—he'd used it a couple of times when he was standing in as Sheriff—and he thinks it'll suit Castiel. The polished wood of the grip is the deciding factor. He thinks he'll like that little bit of nature; something of the earth to make the weapon fit more comfortably in his hand.

“Here,” he says, picking it up and handing it over, “we'll start with this one.”

It takes six bullets, and once he's watched Castiel load them, he gives him the go ahead to take aim.

“See the notch on the barrel? That's—”

“The sight,” Castiel interrupts, impatient, “you already told me that.”

“You're gonna want to line that up with the middle of the target.”

“Really?” his voice is thick with sarcasm, and Dean grins, proud of him for finally mastering it. He raises both hands in the air, stepping back with a quiet laugh.

“Alright, hotshot. Put your money where your mouth is.”

With a smug quirk of his lips, Castiel raises the gun and fires at the target. He misses completely.

“ _Ass_ ,” Castiel mutters to himself.

For some reason, it seems to be his favorite curse word, and Dean grins again. It just seems to annoy Castiel, who looks over his shoulder with disdain.

“You put me off.”

“Sure I did,” Dean shakes his head, reaching out to help, “here.”

Adjusting Castiel's elbow while he aims a second time, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath his fingers, Dean wishes he'd been doing this all day after all. He cuts off the line of thought before it can happen.

“Rest your index finger here,” he says, moving Castiel's fingers with his own, “only put it on the trigger when you're ready to fire.”

Castiel doesn't answer, just nods, and Dean steps back. His palms are damp, and he's glad nobody else is there to see him wipe them against his jeans.

“Alright,” he says, clearing his throat as he leans against the wall to observe, “best thing to do is take in a breath and fire when you exhale. Nice and steady.”

As Castiel breathes in, his shoulders rise, pulling his shirt taut, and Dean loses track of what he's meant to be doing. He's wearing one of Dean's old t-shirts again, despite having his own by now, and the black fabric against his tan skin is doing a lot more to Dean than he wants to think about. It's so distracting that he almost misses the ill-fitting suit. Almost. The sound of gunfire startles him, and he jerks backwards, knocking his head on the wall he's leaning on.

Castiel doesn't notice as he empties the barrel slowly, carefully. When he's done he places the gun back on the bench top.

“I hit the target,” he says proudly, and Dean moves forward to check.

There are five holes in the paper. Three have landed inside the left arm of the target; the others just straddling the line between arm and shoulder.

“Nice job, Cas,” he says, bringing it over to show him up close.

Looking it over, Castiel's face falls in obvious disappointment.

“I thought I hit the middle.”

“This is pretty good for your first try,” Dean reassures him, “your grouping is pretty tight, so you've got a steady hand. It's just the aim is a little off.”

With a nod, Castiel takes the sheet of paper, fingers worrying at the bullet holes. Dean claps him on the back.

“It takes practice, Cas,” he says, squeezing briefly before dropping his hand away, and Castiel looks up from the target with a small smile.

“Then I suppose I'll keep practicing.”

 

* * *

 

Around six the next morning, Dean drags himself out of bed and throws on the clothes he left out the night before. His duffel is packed and waiting by the door, and he's glad he had the foresight to get everything ready before he went to sleep. He's really not a morning person. An extra twenty minutes of shut-eye does wonders.

Hefting the bag onto his shoulder, he heads out into the hallway in time to see Sam emerging from his room. When they both reach the bathroom at the same time, Dean taps his opposite shoulder, ducking in and closing the door before Sam has realized what's going on.

“Dammit, Dean, I need to go.”

Dean chuckles to himself, and when he comes back out, Sam is leaning against the opposite wall with his arms crossed. Dean grins at him.

“Dick,” Sam says and pushes past, closing the door with a heavy click.

In the kitchen, he's surprised to find Castiel and Kevin sitting at the counter, nursing mugs of coffee.

“Why would you choose to be awake this early?” he asks, grabbing his favorite mug from the rack by the sink, “it's not even light out.”

“Actually,” Castiel says, pausing to take a sip, “sunrise was four minutes ago.”

“The hell do you know that?”

“My cellphone has an application that lists sun and moonrise times,” he explains, “also, the dates of the solstices. It's very interesting. I set my alarm by it.”

“Which leads me back to _why_? You don't have to be up for anything.”

“I asked the same thing,” Kevin says darkly, glaring across the counter.

“I set the volume too loud,” Castiel says, looking at him apologetically, “I'll know for next time.”

Giving up on getting an actual answer, Dean fills his mug with coffee from the pot, and leans against the counter to drink it, waiting for Sam to make his way out of the bathroom. He doesn't take long, wandering in within a few minutes and opting for a tall glass of orange juice.

“You ready to go?” he asks.

“I was born ready.”

Kevin mutters something that sounds a whole lot like _such a dork_ , and Dean chooses to ignore it. Draining the last of his coffee, he dumps the mug in the sink.

“I'll meet you at the car,” Sam tells him before turning to the others, “We should be back tomorrow, but if anything changes we'll call.”

“Good luck,” Kevin says as Castiel lifts a hand in a wordless goodbye, and Sam grins at them both, heading back toward his room for his things.

“So what are you guys gonna do today?” Dean asks, taking a bag of licorice from the cupboard and shoving it into the front pocket of the duffel along with Sam's granola bars.

“Target practice, I think,” Castiel tells him, “and perhaps some work in the greenhouse.”

“I've got to finish a quest for the thieves guild,” Kevin says.

When Dean looks at him in confusion, he waves a hand vaguely in the air.

“Skyrim.”

“Is that the one with the zombies or your weird cat-person game?”

“Like I told you—they're called _Khajiit_ , not cat people. And I don't even play as Khajiit. I'm a dark elf.”

“Yeah. _I'm_ the dork.”

“Shut up.”

Laughing, Dean lifts his bag back onto his shoulder.

“If you're gonna be using the guns, be careful,” he tells Castiel.

“I will.”

“I don't want a call from Kevin telling me you've blown your fingers off or something.”

“Dean,” Castiel says firmly, “I understand how to handle a weapon.”

A little voice in the back of Dean's mind wants to remind Castiel that he sliced his own foot open with his angel blade last week, but he has the good sense to ignore it. The other voice that's reading into the accidental innuendo is a little harder to drown out, but he manages.

“I know you do,” he says.

“I appreciate your concern, but I think Kevin and I are both capable of surviving a day without you.”

“Ouch,” Dean says, putting his hand to his heart in mock offense before grinning and heading out the door, “guess I'll see you guys later.”

  
  


* * *

 

 

Out on the open road, windows down and wind whipping through the car, Dean grins over at Sam, leaning back in the passenger seat with a stack of printed articles spread over his knees. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed this. 

The hunt is just outside of Wichita; a haunting turned violent in the past week. For the past three years, the previous owners had noticed strange things around the house—lights turning on and off, doors opening, phantom noises coming from the upstairs bedroom—but though they had believed the house was haunted, they'd never been bothered by what they considered a friendly ghost.

When new owners had moved in a little over a week ago, things changed. According to the article in Sam's lap, the couple had both been woken in the early hours of morning with the distinct feeling that someone was choking them, and they've got the bruises to show for it.

The reason for the ghost's sudden change isn't clear, but Dean figures it doesn't matter if they can find the bones.

He's still not convinced that Sam is up to the task, but it's a simple case, and he's sure if it all goes pear shaped he'll be able to take out the ghost on his own. Hopefully it won't come to that.

They've been driving an hour when Sam turns the music down.

“So I'm pretty sure this is our ghost,” he says, skimming the page in front of him, tracing the words with his index finger, “Valerie Johnson.”

“What's it say?”

“Pretty average teenager, she lived in the house four years ago until she snuck out to see some guy—”

“And he killed her?” Dean guesses, and Sam shakes his head.

“She fell off the roof when she climbed out the window. Got skewered on a fence post.”

“Ugh,” Dean shudders, “We have an address for the bones?”

“Little Hill Cemetery,” folding the print out in half, Sam shoves it into the bag with his laptop, “it's not far from the house.”

“Alright. So we'll check out the house first, make sure it's her, and head over to Little Hill after sundown.”

“Sounds good,” Sam nods, drumming his fingers over his knee, “so, hey... do you think Kevin's pissed at us?”

 _Non-sequitur much_ , Dean thinks, frowning over at his brother.

“About?”

“You know, the whole...” Sam waves his hand vaguely in the air, “not finishing the trials thing. I just feel like he made all these sacrifices, and we just threw it away.” 

“If we didn't throw it away, you'd be dead right now,” Dean points out.

“I don't mean... I know. He doesn't seem too happy is all.”

Dean snorts.

“Who is?”

“Point.”

“But you're right,” Dean says after a moment, “maybe we should do something for him when we get back.”

“Like what?”

“I don't know, Sam. What do geeks even like?”

Sam raises an eyebrow.

“You're the _Star Trek_ fan here,” he says, and Dean pulls a face, returning his full attention back to the road.

“Shut up.”

When they arrive in Wichita, the sun is high and bright.

The house is a two-story Gothic revival, set back on a narrow lot of grass, and it's gray slate roof is speckled in white. A tire swing sways in the breeze, hanging from a weathered rope in the cottonwood tree that shadows the front lawn. Cotton falls like snow from its high branches. Dean rubs his nose, his eyes already stinging.

“Ugh,” he says, slamming the door of the Impala and looking up at the house, “this crap is worse than cat hair.”

He sneezes three times between the car and the wide veranda, and knocks on the door. There's no answer—not that he expected one—and after peering in through the living room window he turns back to Sam.

“Looks like they packed up completely.”

“Good,” Sam says, pulling a lock-pick from his pocket, “I really didn't feel like doing the whole reporter thing today.”

It doesn't take long for the lock to spring free, and they step into the house, closing the door behind them. Dean flicks on his EMF meter as they make their way through the rooms.

It stays mostly quiet on the ground floor, the only sign of activity a very low reading by the rear wall of the kitchen, and they soon head upstairs. In the second bedroom, the meter whines. It gets louder the further he walks, and spikes high near the window.

When he looks back at Sam, he finds him standing in the doorway with a perplexed expression on his face.

“What's up?” he asks, and Sam thinks for a moment, his brow furrowed.

“I don't know. I'm just not getting much in the way of... y'know... bad vibes.”

It's true. Usually, when a ghost is violent, they can feel it. A kind of bite in the air, something prickling and cold. It's subtle, something most people would pass off as nothing but a draft, but after spending their whole lives in the presence of the supernatural, it's something they've both developed a good sense for. 

The house lacks it completely.

“Well, there's a crapload of activity, friendly or not,” Dean says, watching the meter spike again when he holds it closer to the window, “maybe they pissed her off.”

With a glance outside he sees nothing but a patch of drying grass and shedded cotton. There's no fence post there, but Dean's willing to bet there used to be.

“Maybe,” Sam agrees, “not gonna complain. One less thing trying to jump us is definitely a good thing.”

“Hmm,” Dean nods, following Sam toward the door, “especially in your condition.”

Sam stops, looking over his shoulder with narrowed eyes, and Dean pulls up short.

“What?”

“Look, I know it's hard for you to turn off your mothering instincts—”

“ _Mothering_?” Dean repeats, incredulous, “In case you forgot, you almost died a couple of weeks ago.” 

“But I didn't.”

“No shit.”

“I'm just saying, I'm good. You don't have to...”

Sam trails off, and Dean raises his hands in question, palms to the ceiling.

“I don't have to what?”

With his eyes wide, Sam jerks his chin toward the window, and Dean looks back to see a girl standing in the slanting sunlight. She's young, maybe fifteen, and there's the unmistakable buzz of static in the air as she watches them. Her dark skin is streaked with blood, running down her arms from a gaping wound in her chest. She doesn't move. Doesn't speak. Just stares with sad eyes, as though she's waiting for something.

“Valerie?” Sam asks, hesitant, and her head tilts as her gaze turns to him.

Slowly, she raises a hand to her chest. Her fingers curl, passing through the surface of her skin, and she flickers, suddenly right in front of them. Dean jerks back as she reaches out, coldness pressing against his chest. Between one blink and the next, she's gone. He shudders.

“Well that was fuckin' weird.”

“You okay?”

“Aside from the creepy touching, yeah.”

“Well at least we know it's definitely her,” Sam says, heading back into the hallway, “makes our job easier.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Rubbing his chest, Dean takes another look around the room. He can feel the phantom of her touch, spreading like ice under his skin, and he shakes it off before following Sam back downstairs.

 

* * *

 

They end up in a pizzeria for lunch, and while they wait for the waitress to bring them their food, Dean digs his cell out of his pocket and shoots off a quick message to Castiel.  
  
  


 **Sent** ** **: 1:12PM**** ****  
 _Hit the bullseye yet?_  
Bet ur doing me proud ;) ****  
  
  


He's just finished sending it, and is frowning at the second part of the message that he's sure he didn't mean to write, when Sam speaks.

“So you wanna check out anything else before tonight, or—?”

“Like what?”

Shrugging, Sam picks up his coke.

“I was just thinking, if there's nothing else... there's this museum in town that I wanted to see.”

“Seriously?”

“You don't have to come,” Sam says defensively, “actually I'd prefer it if you didn't. You're a pain in the ass with your fast-walking.”

“Knock yourself out, geekboy.”

The waitress arrives, then, and all through their meal, Dean's gaze is constantly drawn back to his cell phone. It's annoyingly quiet. By the time they've finished eating, it's been almost forty minutes since he sent the text and there's still been no reply. He wipes his fingers on a paper napkin, and Sam sees him frowning.

“What's up with you?”

“Huh?”

“You look tense or something.”

“It's nothing,” he says, waving it off despite the clawing feeling in his chest, but at Sam's unconvinced expression adds; “Cas hasn't answered my message.”

“He's probably busy.”

“Yeah, it's nothing. You need a ride?”

“What are you gonna do?”

“Figured I'd check us in somewhere for tonight. Partake in a little cable.”

Sam scrunches up his nose.

“If you're planning to skeeve up the motel room, get two.”

“I said cable, not pay-per-view.”

“Didn't think you knew the difference.”

“You want me to drive you or not?”

“It's like three blocks. I'll walk.”

“Text me when you're done,” Dean tells him.

Sam stands, digging a few notes out of his pocket, and dumps them on top of the bill.

“Will do.”

They head out into the warm sun, and Dean waves as Sam heads away down the road.

“Have fun,” he calls out.

“I'd say you too, but... just. No.”

 

* * *

 

 _Now offering Magic Fingers_ , the sign outside the Blue Sky motel proclaims in yellow cursive, and Dean grins, pulling the Impala into the parking lot. It's been a while.

More out of a desire to gross out his brother through the implication than any actual plans to make use of the pay-per-view, he books two rooms. The chirpy woman behind the reception desk hands over the keys with a smile.

Room eleven is on the second floor, and it overlooks a narrow road and a weedy patch of grass. It's barely two in the afternoon, but already the cicadas have started their call, a constant chirping that echoes in through the open window.

Once he's dumped his bag down on the bed, he takes out his cell. Castiel doesn't answer. The voicemail recording is marginally better than his old one, despite the five seconds of silence at the start.

“This is Castiel. I'm not—”

The beep cuts him off, and Dean shakes his head fondly, pulling aside the curtain to look outside.

“Hey, Cas. Just checking in. Hunt's pretty much a no brainer, so we'll be back on schedule. So, uh... yeah. Hope you guys are good. Call me back when you get a chance. Kinda worried since you didn't answer the message I sent you and it'd be good to talk to you. I mean it's always good to talk to you. I'd just like to hear your voice, you know, I really miss you—“

Dean slams his hand over his mouth and hits the hash key. He's still talking, babbling, and he can't stop. There are words he wouldn't dare say aloud, words like _want_ and _love_ just tumbling out of him without his approval, and he just barely manages to select the option to delete before he tosses the phone across the room.

 _Not good_ , he thinks. _So incredibly not good._

The cold feeling in his chest flares up, and he leaves his phone behind, hurrying outside to the Impala.

The Museum of World Treasures isn't far away, and he pays for entry with hands that are _not shaking, dammit_ , before running through the halls. He finds Sam standing in front of a T-Rex, staring up at the massive skeleton.

“Sam,” he hisses.

Looking over at him in surprise, Sam raises his eyebrows.

“What are you doing here?”

“We have a problem,” Dean says, and hurries back out, heading for the doors.

Outside, he makes a beeline for the Impala, and it seems to take forever for Sam to catch up with him. When he does, he looks worried, and Dean realizes he has absolutely no idea what he's going say.

 _Shit_ , he thinks, _what if I start telling Sam?_

“What's going on?” Sam asks him, and Dean shakes his head. Mimes a pen and paper.

“You can't talk?” Sam asks, squinting, and Dean nods, figuring that's easier than anything else until he can come up with a good story, “but you just did. Like two minutes ago.”

 _Double shit_ , he thinks, and gestures for a pen again.

Sam feels his pockets, producing a ballpoint and a museum map, and he hands them both over too quickly for Dean to think of a story. Holding the pen in his hand, Dean scrambles to come up with something. After a long pause, he writes.

_Ghost did something to me. Making me say weird crap. Need to burn bones NOW._

Sam reads over his shoulder as he writes, and looks at Dean when he's done.

“Weird like what?”

Pulling a face, Dean climbs into the drivers seat, starting up the car while he waits for Sam to get in. When he does, he's giving Dean an amused look.

“What did you say?” he asks, “who were you talking to?”

Dean just shakes his head.

“Well we can't dig up a grave in broad daylight,” Sam tells him, “someone will see us. Is there anything else, or is it just the talking thing?”

He shakes his head again.

“Okay,” Sam says, “then... I guess. Just tough it out 'til sundown? Or I could call Cas and Kevin, see if they can come up with anything?”

“Yeah, call,” he says without meaning to, and clamps his hand back over his mouth, wide eyed. He shakes his head again. He feels his next words ready to force themselves out a split second before they happen, and jams his fingers in his mouth to muffle them, “wab do beak do Gad. Abwas do. Wid ee wad ear. Wab do beb wid ib awb tibe.”

“ _What_?” Sam laughs, and Dean feels his face burning scarlet.

Even if his brother can't understand what he's saying he doesn't want to be saying it. _Fucking handsy ghost_ , he thinks miserably, and shuts off the engine, climbing back out of the car and walking around to the passenger side.

“Oo dwibe,” he mumbles around his fingers, and Sam stares at him incredulously.

“Whatever you're saying you've probably said worse before. You can stop eating your own hand.”

Dean shakes his head emphatically, and Sam moves to the drivers seat.

“Then I guess we'll head back to the motel, and I'll see what else I can find out about Valerie. Which way?”

Dean points down the road, and Sam puts the car into drive. He follows the silent directions with a barely contained mirth in his eyes, and part of Dean wishes he had both hands free so he could throttle him.

 

* * *

 

“Alright,” Sam says, looking up from his laptop a couple of hours later, “so I found Valerie's old blog. From what I can tell she was pretty far gone on this guy Ryan, but they were just friends. There's a bunch of comments from other people telling her to just be honest with him. Maybe she's trying to get a message to him. What do you think?”

Dean shrugs.

“I'll see if I can get any more info on the couple who got attacked,” Sam says, pulling up a new window, “might give us some idea of what to do.”

Dean nods, collapsing back onto his bed, and looks over toward the door. His cell phone is still laying on the floor, and he can see it blinking with a new message _. It's probably from Castiel_ , he thinks. The desire to pick it up, to reply, to call and speak and say everything is overwhelming.

“Hey, get this,” Sam says, mercifully interrupting his thoughts.

Sitting back up, Dean looks at him in question, and Sam shuffles his laptop closer as he reads the police report.

“Says that when forensics came back on their bruises they matched each others hands. Neither is pressing charges though.”

“Meby dey jus gingky,” Dean suggests, waggling his eyebrows as he moves to look at the screen, and Sam glances over at him with distaste.

“Dude, there's drool,” he says, scrunching up his face, “whatever you're saying I promise I won't judge you. Just take your damn hand out of your mouth.”

 _Wish I could_ , Dean thinks, and shakes his head firmly, pointing at the screen to make Sam keep reading. With a sigh, he does.

“Report says they said the bruises were... huh. Kinky. I guess they didn't want to share that in their original interview.”

“Their new address is here. Maybe I'll go speak to them, see if I can find out what exactly happened with the ghost.”

Nodding, Dean points toward his phone, still laying on the floor, and then points at Sam, before miming him walking away.

“You want me to take your phone?” Sam asks, confused, and Dean nods, “why?”

Dean just looks at him, pleading, and Sam makes his way over to pick it up before heading for the door.

“Alright. Here's hoping they'll be helpful.”

“Dank, Sabby.”

Sam sends him a pitiful smile before he shuts the door, and Dean finally moves his hand away, rubbing at his jaw. Three hours and a hastily smashed motel phone later, he returns, and Dean doesn't hesitate to shove his hand back in place.

“Really?” Sam asks him, crossing the room to sit back down at the table, and Dean glares.

He picks up a motel notepad from the bedside table and scrawls out a question, holding it up for Sam to see.

_Did you find out anything?_

Sam shrugs.

“Not much. Though I know a lot more about Mr. and Mrs. Morrison's sex life than I ever wanted to. They won't stop being honest with each other. Like... telling each other exactly what they'd like to do to each other. In detail. Despite company,” Sam shudders, “They are not attractive people. I'll be having nightmares for weeks.”

Dean laughs, biting his hand in the process. Thankfully, Sam doesn't notice.

“They said they'd both been holding back a lot of things they wanted to say to each other for years, but when they moved in to the house they felt this compulsion to confess everything. They only saw the ghost once—apparently it was while they were, uh... indulging in a little... uh. Erotic asphyxiation.”

With a nauseated gulp, Sam shakes his head as if trying to dispel a particularly unsettling mental image, and Dean is glad he didn't have to meet the couple.

“When she appeared they both freaked out, ran outside in the nude and got seen by some neighbors who called the cops. The story about the ghost choking them in the newspaper was just a case of bad reporting.

“So my best guess,” Sam goes on, “is that since Valerie never got to talk to the guy she was in love with, she's making people own up to things they've been scared to say.”

Sam turns to study Dean for a moment.

“Does that sound right? I mean, the things you're saying... are they true?”

Dean is glad he had the foresight to keep his mouth covered, because the words _yeah they're true I'm head over fucking heels for the guy_ try to make their way out. Sam seems to take the incomprehensible sound as affirmation, though.

Dean stands up, shaking his head again.

“Dean—”

“Dob wad dawk boudit, Sabby.”

He heads into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. Only a few seconds pass before Sam knocks, and Dean recognizes the sound of his forehead leaning against the door.

“Dean, if this is about... if this is to do with all that crap you said at the church when I was trying to think of stuff to confess, I won't be offended, okay? You don't have to lock yourself in there.”

 _Dammit_ , Dean thinks, and forces himself to take his hand away. _Focus_. _Don't think about Cas._

“It's not,” he manages, “It's about how I fe—”

He clamps his hand down again and presses his eyes shut.

“Dean,” Sam says, “ _Dean_?”

Finally, Sam sighs.

“Alright. There's still a couple hours to go until we'll be able to do any digging... I'll just head over to my room, okay? I'll let you know if I find anything that might help.”

“Neeg Gad,” he finds himself responding, despite himself, “jud eeg Gad.”

He's relieved to hear Sam's footsteps retreating. With the sound of the room door clicking shut, he exhales and removes his hand from his mouth. It's a little after seven, which means there's still another two hours before the sun goes down, and assuming the ground isn't too hard, it'll take them a couple of hours to dig down to the grave. If he's lucky, he'll only have to endure this for another four hours. He doesn't want to think about the possibility that it won't wear off when they burn the bones.

With every passing minute, the urge to leave the room, to track down a phone to call Castiel grows more difficult to ignore. 

 

* * *

 

By the time Sam comes back, knocking on the door to tell him it's dark enough to go to the cemetery, Dean's entire body is quaking. The need to confess everything rolls through him, fills his body with cold, with electricity. 

For a moment, Sam looks as though he's going to comment on it, but to Dean's relief, he changes his mind.

“The soil in this part of Kansas is usually pretty soft,” he says instead, “so digging shouldn't be too hard.”

Attempting a grateful smile that he's certain fails completely, Dean heads out into the parking lot and climbs into the passenger seat.

The drive is short, only around ten minutes, and Sam pulls the Impala into a copse of trees that backs onto the cemetery. Little Hill is fairly small, and having already scoped it out, Sam leads the way to Valerie's grave. It's beside a cottonwood, and Dean bats at the clouds of it that fall with every breath of wind. It still gets in his eyes, his nose, and he sneezes. As if he didn't hate his life enough right now. 

Sam grimaces in sympathy and presses the shovel into the earth. For over an hour, they dig, and when they finally strike wood, Dean could just about cry from relief. Pulling himself up out of the grave, he sees Valerie standing by the headstone. She's watching him sadly, her mouth moving as though she's trying to speak, and Dean thinks he'd pity her if it wasn't for the situation she's put him in. As it is, he's just exhausted. He empties a gas can over the grave. She doesn't try to stop him.

The smell of gasoline rises, and Dean steps back from the edge, waiting for Sam to strike the match. As the flames rise, Valerie dissipates, and Dean breathes out a sigh of relief.

“Feel better?” Sam asks him, and Dean nods, staring down at the fire.

After today, talking still feels like too much.

 

* * *

 

They arrive back in Lebanon late the next afternoon, and walk into the bunker to find Kevin and Castiel in the war room, playing cards. Despite the fact that he's had plenty of time to put the previous day behind him, and hasn't felt that cold, clawing need to confess since Valerie's bones had burned, he's still a little nervous about seeing Castiel. Scared that some residual impulse will surface and he'll say something. He avoids looking at him too long, choosing instead to face Kevin with a mocking grin.

“Bunker's still standing,” he says, “I take it that means you didn't try to cook.”

Kevin sends him a withering look, and he chuckles in reply. The laugh sounds hollow in his own ears, and he hopes nobody else notices. Beside him, Sam just scoffs, shaking his head, and claps him on the shoulder before he dumps his bag on the table and heads for the bathroom. Adjusting the strap of the duffel on his shoulder, Dean shuffles a little awkwardly on his feet.

“So, I'm just gonna—” he gestures down the hall vaguely before he starts walking, and when he hears the telltale sound of a chair being pushed away from the table he hopes in vain that it's Kevin who has decided to follow him.

“I trust you dispatched the ghost,” Castiel says, and Dean even remotely surprised that it's him.

“Yeah, eventually,” he says, “kinda felt bad about it, to be honest. She didn't deserve it.”

“She'll be in Heaven, now,” Castiel assures him, then falters, squinting, “or Hell. It depends.”

Huffing out a laugh, Dean pushes through the door to his room, dumping his duffel on the bed. Castiel stands in the doorway while he unpacks. Dean wonders if he always felt this awkward. He hopes it won't last.

“So what'd you guys get up to?” he asks, hanging his jacket on the back of his desk chair.

“When you're finished with that, I'll show you.”

 _Why does everything he says have to sound like a goddamn pick up line?_ Dean wonders, closing his eyes briefly before turning around with what he hopes is an expression of casual interest.

“Lead the way.”

Following Castiel down the hall, it doesn't take long for him to guess where they're headed, and when they reach the firing range Castiel is brimming with pride. On the bench, a pile of paper targets lays, and he picks them up, holding them out for Dean to take.

“I've improved,” he says.

Dean looks them over. He lets out a low whistle.

“Sure have.”

Most of the holes are in the center—a few in the chest, a few in the head—and only a couple have landed outside the silhouette. It's far more of an improvement than Dean would have expected in such a short time, and he looks up from the targets to find Castiel smiling at him.

“This is really awesome, Cas,” he says, dumping the sheets back on the counter, “you up for a challenge?”

“A challenge?”

“Whoever loses has to buy dinner.”

“You're the only one with any money,” Castiel points out, “and it's all stolen, anyway.”

“That sounds like a forfeit to me. I guess I win.”

Castiel narrows his eyes.

“I accept your challenge.”

Dean grins, clapping him on the shoulder, and tells himself that this is the key. So long as they've got something to do, something to keep him distracted, he'll be able to get his feelings back under control.

 

* * *

 

Castiel, he discovers, is smug when he wins. It should be infuriating; Dean just finds it endearing.

As he sits in the waiting area of Becker's Bar and Grill, listening for his number to be called, he pulls up the messages on his cell phone. 

He'd completely forgotten about the message he sent the day before—Sam must have opened the reply when he'd picked up the phone. He taps on Castiel's name to read it, and finds more than he expected.

****  
Sent ****: 1:12PM** **   
_Hit the bullseye yet?  
Bet ur doing me proud ;)_

****  
Received ****: 3:06PM** **   
_Not yet_ _, but I appreciate your  
confidence in me. I'll keep trying. _

  
**Received** ** **: 3:10PM****  
 _Also, it seems that the walls of the_  
firing range block phone signal.  


 **Sent** ** **: 5:22PM****  
 _Hey Cas, this is Sam—Dean doesn't have_  
his phone so call me if you need anything.  
  


**Received** ****: 5:23PM** ** **  
**_Why?_

**Sent** ****: 5:23PM** **   
_Use my number instead._  
  


**Received** ****: 5:24PM** ** **  
**_Is Dean hurt? What's wrong?_

**Sent** ****: 5:25PM** ** **  
**_He's fine. Long story. Use my number though._

  
He wonders how much Sam told him, and if he'd seen the missed call. If he'd put two and two together and realized that Dean was keeping something from him. For a few terrible seconds he's certain that Castiel will ask him about it—but he would have done it already. If he'd been at all suspicious that Dean had anything to hide, Castiel wouldn't have been so happy to see him when they got home. And he was. He'd been _beaming_. That knowledge settles warm in Dean's head and in his chest, and he finds himself smiling down at his phone. Castiel was happy to see him. 

He doesn't hear his number getting called out until the woman sitting beside him nudges his elbow with her own, and he's still smiling when he gets into the Impala, a bag of take out on the passenger seat.

 

* * *

 

It's a couple of days later, a few minutes after four in the morning, that Dean jerks out of a restless sleep to the sound of a fist pounding on his door. His pulse racing, he pulls it open to find Kevin holding out his cell phone.

"It's Garth," he says breathlessly, "he's in Detroit."

Taking the phone, Dean has a conversation that involves a lot of things that he could really do without hearing about before he's properly awake. He jots down everything on a notepad and hangs up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Heading down the hall to wake Sam and Castiel, he finds both their rooms empty, and when he gets to the library three tired faces turn to look at him. 

He dumps the notepad onto the table.

"So it looks like Crowley was telling the truth when he said there was a maze. Kind of,” Dean drops heavily into a chair, “hope you guys like David Bowie."

Kevin and Castiel both squint at him, though presumably for different reasons.

“So, it's a labyrinth?” Sam asks, and Kevin sinks back in his seat with a nod.

“That's at least easier than a maze.”

“There's a difference?” Dean asks.

“A labyrinth has a single path, a maze has many,” Castiel tells him.

“Oh... uh. I think it's just a maze, then,” Dean says, maybe a little more annoyed about screwing up a reference than he should be, considering the fact that their friend has been trapped for two months, but it's the ass crack of dawn and he's half asleep, so he figures he gets a pass.

"Please just tell me there's not a goblin involved,” Sam says wearily.  
  
"Nope, no goblins... think beefier."

Sam frowns briefly before his eyebrows shoot up.  
  
"A minotaur _?_ " he asks, dubious.  
  
"Yep."  
  
"In _Detroit_?"

"Sammy, a couple years ago we ran into a suicidal teddy bear," Dean points out, "you're seriously gonna get skeptical about a minotaur in Motor City?"  
  
"Good point," Sam says.

"A suicidal _what_?" Kevin asks.  
  
"It's a long story."  
  
"I've really gotta read those books."  
  
"No, you don't," Sam and Dean both say sharply, and Kevin nods to himself.  
  
"Yeah, I'm gonna read them."  
  
"Kevin, so _help_ me—"  
  
"Dean," Castiel interrupts, "what's happening with Garth?"

Dean glances over at him.

"Right. So Crowley dumped him there to get them out of the way--said he needed him alive, I'm not sure why—but that there was no _theater_ in just sticking someone in a cage."  
  
"Bastard," Kevin mutters, “I should have killed him when I had the chance.”

Humming in agreement, Dean rolls his knuckles against a kink in his neck.

“Join the club.”

"So," Sam clears his throat uncomfortably, "what now?”

“Well Garth got out, obviously, but the minotaur's still alive. He said he'd go back in and kill it himself, but he doesn't have a weapon and had to get back to keep an eye on the entrance before someone else wandered in. Told him I'd be there as soon as I could."  
  
“Alright, I guess we can research on the road.”

“No need,” Dean says, “decapitation is all it takes. Doesn't matter what with.”

“How do you know that?”

“Remember Prometheus?”

“Yeah?”

“When we were researching all those Greek texts, there was this whole passage about minotaurs,” he says, “y'know. In the dragon penis book.”

“In _which_ book?” Castiel asks, his eyes narrowed, and Sam shakes his head.

“Of course that's the part you remember.”

“Uh, you'll notice I also remembered the useful information.”

“Still.”

“Point is, research is done. If I leave now I can get to Detroit by sundown.”

“Alright, I'll grab my stuff.”

“Nah, I can handle this one. You guys hold down the fort.”

“Dean, I told you—”

“You're fine. I know. But this is gonna be cakewalk. Me 'n Garth can handle it.”

"Wait for me," Kevin says, and they all look at him, "I needed to get to Michigan, so..."  
  
"What for?" Sam asks.  
  
"Charlie offered me her spare room. It's not like anything big is happening now, anyway," he points out.  
  
"You're moving out?” Sam asks, “what are you going to do?"  
  
"I applied to a community college in Oakland, since my shot at Princeton is basically DOA," he shrugs, "I mean, I'll keep in touch. And if something comes up, I'll help, but... I kind of want my life back, you know?"

"Yeah,” Sam says, nodding though he's clearly disappointed, “yeah, I get it."

There's a brief, uncomfortable silence, and Dean clears his throat.  
  
"You'd better go pack your stuff,” he says, not liking the words out loud any more than he liked thinking them, “we need to leave in the next hour.”  
  
"Yeah, I'm on it."

Kevin pushes up from the table, and the remaining trio watch as he leaves.  
  
"I'm going to miss him," Castiel says, and Dean finds himself agreeing. 

At some point in the past few weeks, the prophet had become a part of the family. With a look over at the dejected expression on Sam's face, Dean thinks his brother would agree.

 

* * *

**  
**The trip up to Detroit takes about fifteen hours including breaks, and for a brief stretch in Illinois, Dean does the unthinkable and lets Kevin drive. He and Sam hadn't come up with a way to apologize for everything Kevin had been through since they'd spoken about it on their drive down to Wichita, and Dean figures this is one way of doing it. His car is important, after all.

“ _Dude_ ,” Kevin says, adjusting his grip on the wheel, “I'm starting to see why you love this thing so much.”

“This _thing_?”

Kevin rolls his eyes.

“I'm sorry. Her. _She_ ,” he pauses, smirking, “your wheeled wife. Your freeway fem—”

“Kevin?” Dean mutters from where he's half-asleep against the window in the passenger seat, “shut up and drive.”

When they finally pull up at the edge of the aqueduct Garth directed them to, it's a little after nine o'clock and the sky has just begun to darken.  
  
Thankfully, it doesn't take much convincing for Kevin to stay behind in the car as a lookout. With a shotgun slung over one shoulder and his duffel on the other, Dean makes his way down the steep incline, heading for the trees on the other side. It's quiet. The only sound is the crunch of his boots over leaves.

His flashlight beam bounces from branch to branch, and after fifteen minutes, he breaks through the last of the trees into a clearing that reeks of sulfur. He spots Garth immediately, sitting on a half-rotten log.

"Dean!" grinning wide, Garth leaps to his feet, "you're a sight for sore eyes."

Dean staggers, almost knocked clean over by the sheer force of Garth's hug, and claps him firmly on the back.

"You doin' okay, Garth?"  
  
"Been better, but hell—least I'm alive, right?" Garth beams, adjusting the faded cap on his head, "you ready to go?"

From his bag, Dean pulls a protein bar and a bottle of water, handing them over.

"Eat up first."

Garth rips open the plastic wrapping with his teeth before taking a massive bite.

"What've you been living on this whole time?" Dean asks, watching as Garth tears through the bar with gusto.

"Rats, mainly," Garth tells him through a mouthful, and Dean pulls a face, "plus some kind of tree roots. Those covered the taste pretty good. There's a couple underground streams down there, so I wasn't too thirsty."

He unscrews the cap of the water bottle, taking a swig before guzzling the whole lot.

"But damn that's good," he says, grinning as he wipes his mouth on his sleeve, "first thing when we're done, I wanna get me a chicken fried steak. Had a hankerin' for like a week."  
  
"Well until then," Dean hands him another protein bar and crouches down to dig through the duffel while he eats, dividing up cans of white spray paint, flashlights, rope, and flares, "Any demons down there?"  
  
"Nope," Garth scrunches up the wrapper and makes a show of tossing it back into the duffel, "been on my own since Crowley dumped me here."

Dean hands over a flask of holy water anyway, and Garth adds it to his pocket.

“How'd you get out?”

“Not really sure. There was a whole lotta noise a couple of days ago, and then today I found an opening that wasn't there before. Sulfur out the wazoo, but no sign of anyone still hanging around.”

“So you think a demon busted the maze?”

Garth shrugs.

“Kinda seems like it, but hell if I know why.”

A nagging voice in the back of Dean's mind tells him that Crowley is probably planning something, but he pushes it away. For now, they've got a monster to kill, and under his cheerful grin, Garth looks like he's one bit of bad news away from snapping. Whatever the demons are up to, Dean figures he can wait to work it out.

He hands over his second machete, and soon they're both weighed down and ready to go.

"So," he says, tucking a paint can into his jacket pocket and standing up, "where're we going?"

Garth takes a tiny step to the left and points down on the ground behind the log he'd been sitting on. The opening to the maze is tiny--a hole in the rocky earth barely three by four feet--and Dean groans at the sight of it.

"Dude, really?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Tell me we'll at least be able to stand up once we're inside."

Garth looks him over, considering his height.

"Mostly," he says, adjusting his grip on the machete in his hand and lowering his feet into the hole, "last one in is a rotten egg!"

With a laugh, Garth disappears into the hole, and Dean steels himself for an uncomfortable few hours before he follows.

 

* * *

  
Laying flat on his stomach in a particularly narrow stretch of the maze, which seems to be more of a series of interconnected caves and burrows than anything else, Dean waits for Garth to move forward into the next wide opening. It's slow, and the overpowering smell of the spray paint they're using to mark their way is making his head pound.  
  
Garth shuffles ahead slightly, pushing rocks aside and sending dust back in clouds. It floats into Dean's face, up into his nostrils, and he presses his forearm to his nose, trying to keep from sneezing. The sudden buzz of his cell phone in his pocket nearly makes him jump out of his skin, and he answers the call blindly.  


“Hello?” he whispers, rubbing the back of his skull where it connected with the rock above.

“Dean.”

“Hey, Cas. What's wrong?”

“Nothing. How are you?”

“Oh. Yeah. I'm fine. How—” a few inches in front of him, a beetle scurries out of a crack in the rock, and he flicks it away with one hand, “how about you?”

“I'm well,” he says, and makes no further comment.

“Oh... cool.”

“It's raining. Is it raining there?”

Dean grimaces. He's pretty sure that this is the most stilted conversation he's ever had. Hell, he's pretty sure it's the most stilted conversation _Cas_ has ever had, and that's saying something.  


“Uh, no. Not raining, I don't think. Look, I'm kind of in the middle of something right now. We're still in the maze.”

“Oh.”  
  
"I'll call you back when we're done."  
  
"Okay."

The call ends, and Dean stares at his phone in confusion for a good ten seconds before Garth whispers from up ahead that there's room to come forward.

 

* * *

 

They don't find the minotaur until half past two in the morning, and after throwing a flare directly into its face and blasting it in the chest with enough buckshot to sink a moose, it only takes about five minutes for Garth to get close enough to cut its throat. He's clinging to it's back as it thrashes, blade digging into it's throat, and with a grunt he pulls back, blood spraying out as its head drops.  
  
Standing over it's sinewy body, covered from head to toe in thick blood, Garth looks up at Dean with a cheesy grin.

"What?" Dean asks.  
  
"I guess our beef is settled," Garth says, and he's so damn proud of himself that Dean can't find it in his heart to groan.

Shaking his head, Dean laughs, hitching his shotgun back up on his shoulder.

"C'mon," he says, turning, "let's get the hell out of here."

Once they're back out in the open, they kick at the rocks around the opening, shoving them in until its well and truly blocked. Dean points in the direction of the car, shooting off a message to Kevin to let them know they're on their way back.

When they're almost at the aqueduct, Dean digs his cell out of his pocket and slows. Garth looks over at him.  


“I just have to—” Dean shakes the phone in the air.  


“No worries,” Garth says, clapping him on the shoulder, “I really oughtta call my special lady, too. Meet you at the car.”

Dean doesn't bother correcting him. Just dials and waits for Castiel to answer.

“Dean? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, we just finished up. Did I wake you?”  
  
“No, I couldn't sleep. I was reading.”  
  
“Not more Freud I hope.”

“No, I borrowed one of yours. Cat's Cradle.”

“Oh. Cool. You like it so far?”

"I think so. I'll finish it tonight and we can discuss it when you get back.”

“I dunno, Cas," Dean says, stopping to lean against a tree and flicking idly at its bark, "last book club I ran into turned out to be a cult.”

“What?”

“Never mind. We can talk about the book if you want.”

“I'd like that," Castiel says, his voice warm and sincere, and Dean's stomach swoops. He clears his throat.

“So, uh... why'd you call before?”

“I didn't mean to press dial,” Castiel admits, “but my finger slipped and I thought if I hung up without speaking to you first you'd worry that something was wrong at the bunker.”

“Oh. Good thinking,” Dean tells him. 

A fairly large part of Dean's mind is preoccupied with why Castiel was hovering over the dial button in the first place, but he quietly tells it to shut up. 

“What did you do today?” he asks.

“Sam taught me to drive.”

“What? In what car? Why?”

“It was for sale on the side of the road,” Castiel tells him, “we saw it when we were walking to the store. Sam said it was a junker, but it runs and it was only a hundred dollars, so we bought it and he taught me to drive.”

“I was going to teach you.”

“You still can. I doubt one lesson will suffice.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

He knows it's pointless to be annoyed about it. It's not like Sam knew he'd been looking forward to showing Cas how to drive. If anything, Sam probably thought he wouldn't let Castiel touch the Impala's keys until he'd proven he wouldn't ram it into something by accident. His voice must have betrayed him, though, because after a moment Castiel speaks, and he sounds confused.

“You seem disappointed.”

“No. No, it's fine. I just... wait until I get back before you drive it again. Sam doesn't know shit about cars, it might have crappy brakes or something.”

“When are you coming home?”

“Me 'n Kev are heading to Charlie's place after we've dropped Garth off, so probably won't get back there until Monday. Sometime in the afternoon?"  
  
"Two days, then.”

"More like a day and a half," he says, getting a kick out of the fact that Castiel is counting, "how's things, anyway? How's Sam?”

"He's asleep right now, but I can wake him if you want.”

“Nah, let him sleep. How about you?”

“I'm... I'm okay.”

“You sure about that?”

“It's too quiet here without you," Castiel says after a moment, "Sam doesn't play music."  
  
“You can play music if you want. You know how to use the turntable?”

“It's in your room.”

“So what?”

“You wouldn't mind?”

“Course not. Go for it.”

“Oh. Thank you. Maybe I will tomorrow.”

“Alright, I've gotta go... Kevin and Garth are waiting.”

“Okay.”

“Try and get some sleep.”

“I will. Goodnight, Dean.”

“Night, Cas.”

As he ends the call, smiling down at his cell phone, Dean has the overwhelming feeling that he was wrong. He can't possibly have been in love with Castiel for years, because he's falling now. Still. He lets out a slow breath and walks back to the car.  
  
After they take Garth to the Greyhound station and get him a ticket on a bus headed for Cleveland, Dean and Kevin drive on to Farmington Hills. 

It's nearly 6am by the time they arrive, and Charlie blinks dully at them for a solid thirty seconds before mumbling something about there being a high blood level in her alcohol stream and going back to bed. They collapse onto her couch head to toe, and before long both are snoring. Two hours later, Charlie emerges, waking them as she sits on their legs, dragging a blanket over them all.

"My everything hurts," she groans as her phone chimes, and she pulls it out of her hoodie pocket, tapping out a reply.

“Preachin' to the choir,” Dean tells her.  
  
"We nearly got killed by a minotaur last night," Kevin says from the other end of the couch, his eyes still closed, "I envy your hangover."  
  
"Don't worry, Kev, you'll have plenty of them living with me."

Kevin makes a sound that Dean thinks is meant to be a laugh, and Charlie gets another text.

"As long as I don't almost get killed, I'm happy," Kevin mutters.

  
"Kevin, you sat in the car and played Robot Unicorn Attack on your phone while _Garth and I_ nearly got killed," Dean says, cracking open an eye and pulling Charlies blanket further up his shoulders as her phone chimes again, "now stop talking and let me sleep."

Kevin huffs, and Charlie laughs at both of them, reaching over to prod Dean in the ribs.

 

"Hey, grumpy, you want a McMuffin?"

Dean grunts a yes, and Charlie ruffles his hair before she gets off the couch. He swats her hand away.

"Sausage and egg," he mumbles, turning his face against the cushion, "and a hash brown."

"Okie dokie," Charlie says as her phone chimes again, and Dean forces his eyes open.

 

"Who the hell is texting you this early?"  
  
"Hmm?" she says, distracted as she taps her cell phone screen, "No-one. Kevin, you want anything?"  
  
"All the hash browns," he says sleepily, "every last one of the hash browns."  
  
"Except mine."  
  
"Especially Dean's."

  
When Charlie gets back, she turns on the TV and settles between Dean and Kevin on the couch to watch an episode of Voyager while they eat, and then another because until they've all woken up enough to move Kevin's stuff into his new room, it just seems stupid to bother with things like moving or thinking.

For nearly two hours, Charlie's cell chimes constantly.

"Okay, seriously, who's texting you?" Dean asks after the nineteenth message, "you have a secret girlfriend or something?"

Charlie laughs at him, and Dean tries to grab her cell.

"Who is this woman?" he asks, stretching out, "do I need to give her a firm, brotherly talking to about treating you right?"

  
Charlie holds the phone out of his reach, climbing over the back of the couch.

"Thanks for the offer, Mr Man, but it's not a secret girlfriend," she laughs, typing out a reply to the most recent message as she walks across the room toward the kitchen counter, "it's just Cas."

  
Dean's eyes narrow.

“Cas? My Ca—“ he catches himself, clears his throat, “ _angel of the freakin' lord_ , Cas?”

“That's the one.”

"You text _Cas_?"  
  
"Uhuh."  
  
"Cas texts _you?_ "  
  
"Yup."

“He _texts_ you?”

“Did you bump your head last night?” she asks, laughing.

Dean kneels on the couch with his elbows on the backrest, frowning at her where she stands by the counter, tapping on the screen. Keeps tapping. _Long message_ , he thinks.  
  
"What do you two even talk about?"  
  
"Stuff," she says, distracted, and he pulls a face.  
  
"Stuff?"  
  
"And things. Things and stuff. Why?” shoving her cell into the pocket of her hoodie, she raises her eyebrows at him, “What do _you_ and Cas talk about?"

He shrugs, sitting back down and looking at the TV screen.

  
"Stuff."  
  
"Things?" Charlie asks, a smirk in her tone, and Dean nods.  
  
"Occasionally we talk about things. Generally stuff, though," he says seriously, "We like to keep it light."  
  
"What the hell are either of you talking about?" Kevin asks.  
  
"Stuff," they say.  
  
"You're both idiots."

Dean throws a cushion at his head, and Kevin catches it easily before he shoves up from his seat.

"Where's the keys?" he asks, rolling his neck, "I'm gonna go get my stuff out of the car."

Dean fishes the keys out of his pocket and hands them over, and as Kevin's walking out the door, he leans over the couch to call after him, "don't forget your things!"  
  
Charlie laughs, sinking back down beside him. After a a few seconds, Dean's curiosity grows too strong.

"But seriously," he asks, picking at a loose thread on a throw cushion and trying not to sound too interested, "what do you guys text about?"  
  
"He's helping me infiltrate the security system on the ISS," Charlie tells him.

  
"Wait, really?"

  
"No," she snorts, "mind your business."  
  
"Come _on_ , Charlie, just tell me."  
  
"Why do you want to know so badly?" she asks, arching her brow, and Dean thinks to himself, _this is it, this is your shot, tell her._

He opens his mouth, hoping the words will just fall out if he waits long enough. When they don't, he clamps it shut and looks back at the TV screen. He doesn't bring it up again, despite six messages coming through while they watch another episode, and another five while they help Kevin set up his room.  
  
In the end, despite his original plan to stay the night and leave first thing the next morning, he decides to leave at midday for no real reason other than he misses his mattress, his record player, the ridiculously strong water pressure of the bunker's shower. He misses home, is all. That's his story and he's sticking to it.

He drives without stopping for the first six hours, only pausing in Davenport, Iowa to fill up on gas and eat what he's pretty sure is the best pulled pork sandwich he's ever had, then aims the Impala west on the I-80.

It's around half past two in the morning when he gets back, and walking down the hallway toward his room, Dean tries to tread quietly, tries not to jostle the bag on his shoulder so as not to wake anyone. He nearly makes it the whole way before he hears a creak and looks over his shoulder to see Castiel standing in his doorway, bleary-eyed and sleep-rumpled.

"Sorry," he whispers, "didn't mean to wake you."

Castiel moves toward him purposefully, and for a moment, Dean's heart clenches, because in his road-weary state it almost seems like Castiel is going to kiss him. He doesn't, of course, just wraps him in a crushing hug. It's so warm that Dean wonders if a kiss would actually have been any better.  
  
Dropping his duffel on the floor with a clunk, he squeezes him right back. Castiel's hair brushes against his cheek, and when Dean breathes in he catches the smell of coconut. Against his will he thinks of tilting his face, just so, just a little, and pressing his lips to the line of skin between t-shirt and hairline. Wonders if his skin would taste as sweet.

He tries to pull back, but Castiel's arms are still tight around him.

"Miss me?" he asks quietly, half-joking, and feels Castiel nod, chin bumping his shoulder.  
  
"Yes.”

Pressing his eyes closed, Dean hopes with everything he has that Castiel can't feel his pulse.

 

* * *

 

 

By quarter to four, Dean has been laying in bed for close to an hour, and sleep just won't come.

There's an itch in his gut, a nagging ache, and he knows it's not going anywhere on its own. Quiet as he can, he climbs out from beneath the sheets and pads down the hall to the bathroom with his sights set on the shower.

Under the steady stream of water, he tells himself, as he has every time for years, that he won't think of Castiel. He swears that he'll think of someone else. Anyone else.

But his eyes fall on the bottle of coconut and vanilla conditioner, and before he's had a moment to think about what he's doing he's rubbing it into his hair, letting the heady scent envelop him. As soon as he breathes it in he gives up all pretense, and in his minds eye the fantasies he never allowed himself to truly have surge into being. He's going to hate himself as soon as he's done, and he knows it, but right now, in this moment, all he wants is release.

The steam is thick, clouds of it rolling over the tile, and shuffling forward he lets the water pound down over his back, working the knots from his spine. He thinks of that morning, of the sight of Castiel's heels digging down into the mattress, of his head thrown back, his throat bared, mouth wide, and imagines dragging his lips over the flushed skin of his collarbone. With one forearm leaning against the shower wall his fingertips skitter down over his stomach, up his thighs, teasing light, before they move to the head of his cock, catching the slickness there and dragging it down to smooth his way. His mouth falls open, water running down over his lips, and he thinks about Castiel doing this, here. Wonders if he's touched himself in the shower. Wonder's if he'd tease himself to hardness the way Dean likes to do, or if he'd grip himself tightly from the beginning.

He pictures the bathroom door opening. Pictures Castiel moving up behind him, hands slipping through warm water to settle around Dean's waist, pulling him close until his chest is flush with Dean's back and his lips press down against Dean's shoulder. He imagines Castiel's voice, a whisper against the shell of his ear, tickling quiet, telling him how much he needs this. Wants this. Wants Dean.

His hand moves as Castiel's does in his thoughts, slow, firm, and he bites down on his lips to stifle the sound that wants to tumble from them. In his mind, he moans aloud. In his mind, Castiel moans with him. He thinks about what it would be like to feel Castiel growing hard against the back of his thigh, to feel him slipping against his skin, to feel his release, and he works his hand faster, a little rougher as his toes curl into the tile. Finally, breathless and weak-kneed at the thought of Castiel in rapture, he comes.

It's on wobbly legs that he makes his way back to bed, and minutes after sinking down into the mattress, he sleeps soundly for the first time in days.


	5. Proof

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end notes for chapter warnings.

For a brief moment when he wakes, Dean is blissfully warm and unaware. Consciousness seeps in, though, and with it comes the memory of what he did in the shower. Guilt rolls in his gut.  
Sure, it was all fantasy, but he still feels skeevy. As though even thinking about Castiel like that makes him the biggest creep on the planet.

Pushing out of bed, he berates himself for giving in to something he's been actively avoiding for years, and doesn't stop until he wanders into the kitchen fifteen minutes later to find Sam failing to make an omelet.

“Are you sure this isn't scrambled eggs?” Dean asks, pushing his brother away from the stove, and Sam pulls a face at him.

“It fell apart.”

“Right. Leave it to the professional, little brother.”

Sam rolls his eyes, but he still moves away without a fight, letting Dean scrape the pan out into the trash so he can start over.

“How was Charlie?”

“Hungover, mostly,” Dean says, cracking fresh eggs and pouring a little milk into the bowl, “turns out she and Cas are like... best friends, now.”

Looking over at him through messy morning hair as he waits for the coffee to brew, Sam crinkles his brow.

“What?”

“I dunno,” Dean says with a shrug, already feeling stupid for mentioning it, “they were texting back and forth all freakin' day.”

Sam doesn't make any further comment, and Dean thinks it's a good chance to let the topic drop. His mouth doesn't get the memo.

“He say anything about it?” he asks, voice casual as he beats the eggs with a fork.

“Nope.”

“But it's weird, right?” he asks, putting the bowl down and turning to look at his brother, who stares at him with a scrunched expression that Dean doesn't like one bit. Dean fidgets under his gaze.

“Not... really?” Sam says after a moment, “I mean, they kind of hit it off when she was here, right? Makes sense that they'd keep in touch.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Dean says, unconvinced, and Sam snorts out a laugh at him.

“Cas is allowed to have other friends, you know.”

Embarrassed, Dean turns back to the omelet.

“Did I say he wasn't?”

While Sam smirks, pouring them both cups of coffee, Dean gives him a once over. All signs of his brush with death have faded, and he looks healthier than he has in months. Gone are the shadows under his eyes, the gray tinge to his cheeks, the tired, downturned mouth.

Even if the only reason he's smiling right now is because he's making fun of Dean, it's a relief to see.

“You been sleeping better?”

“Yeah,” Sam says, putting Dean's mug down by his elbow, “and I actually dreamed last night. First time since I started the trials.”

“Wait, you stopped dreaming? Why didn't you say anything?”

Sitting back down, Sam powers up his laptop.

“Didn't think it mattered.”

Dean just barely manages to stop himself from calling bullshit. He'd put good money on the real reason being that Sam knew Dean would think it was a big fucking deal, and was trying to avoid the so-called mothering that he'd complained about down in Wichita.

With a sour expression on his face, Dean turns the first correctly prepared ham and cheese omelet onto a plate, and decides to let it lie. Sam, meanwhile, quietly taps away at his computer, bringing up the police feed.

“Any sign of Crowley?” Dean asks, sliding the plate over to his brother.

“Not that I can see. I guess he's been laying low since he skipped town.”

“I don't like it.”

“Yeah, well. Not much we can do until he turns up.”

As Sam digs into his breakfast, Castiel wanders in, scratching at his stomach. He's fresh from the shower, pink-eared as usual, and as Dean pours the second omelet he swallows down his returning guilt. With some effort, he pushes all thought of the previous night out of his head and tries to act normal.

“Mornin', Cas,” he says, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the pan, “you hungry?”

“Are there tomatoes?”

“If you chop them fast enough,” Dean tells him, gesturing toward the fridge with the spatula, and Castiel wanders over to take some out. They work quietly, and soon enough Dean hands over another omelet. When he finally sits down to eat his own breakfast, Sam has already finished, and Castiel is reading something on the laptop.

“So, Dean,” Sam says, “did you see Cas' car?”

“Nope,” Dean says through a mouthful, glancing over to where Sam is filling the sink to clean up, “I'll take a look today. Make sure it's not a deathtrap.”

“I checked it out before we bought it. It's a junker, but it's fine.”

“We'll see.”

“It's perfectly sound,” Castiel tells him without looking up from the computer, and as he loads up another forkful of omelet, Dean looks doubtfully at them both.

“We'll see,” he repeats.

Castiel's car is a piece of shit.

It's an ancient, pale yellow Sierra pick-up with orange bursts of rust blooming around the windows, and Dean doubts it's had a service since the late 80's.

“Christ,” he mutters, eying the car warily as he trudges up the steps from the door.

Oily black clouds spill noisily from the exhaust pipe as it idles in the road by the bunker. Dean wants to pull Castiel out of it and force him into something that doesn't sound like it's thirty seconds and a pothole away from exploding.

“Sam let you drive this heap?”

“Yes,” Castiel grins at him through the open drivers window like he's proud of the damn thing, “get in.”

Dean emphatically does not want to, but Castiel looks so eager that he can't deny him. The door creaks as he pulls it open. Flakes of rust and paint come off on his hand. He pulls a face as he wipes it off on his jacket.

“It's entirely roadworthy,” Castiel assures him when he climbs inside, “Sam made certain of it.”

“Because he's such an expert.”

“He said you taught him.”

Well, I can't fault that, Dean thinks, and makes a show of buckling his seat belt, resigned to his fate as a passenger in what he's already mentally dubbed The Deathmobile.

The interior is in much the same condition as the exterior. The seat cushions are cracked and peeling, the dashboard faded and grimy. Over the drivers side door, the roof upholstery sags loosely, and Dean can see little chunks of yellowed padding drifting down from the ripped seam to land in Castiel's hair. He ignores the urge to dust it away, reaching out instead to tap the side of the clover-shaped air freshener that hangs from the rear view mirror.

Unless it's meant to smell like exhaust fumes, it's not doing much of anything. Scrunching up his nose, Dean considers the possibility that Deathmobile might actually be an understatement.

“Ready?” Castiel asks him, and when another glance finds him eager and excited behind the steering wheel, Dean just grips the handle over the door, bites back his harsh assessment, and waves him on with his free hand.

“Alright,” he says, “show me what you can do.”

It's an automatic, and Castiel slips it easily into drive, returning both hands to the wheel before releasing the brake. They take off slowly, rumbling down the gravel. Castiel sits stiffly in his seat, fingers tense around the wheel. Dean tries not to watch the way his tongue presses down against his lower lip as he concentrates, and fails horribly.

“How far should we go?” Castiel wonders aloud.

“As far as you want,” Dean replies, and thanks whoever is listening that Castiel doesn't catch the accidental innuendo.

Something rattles loudly with every corrugation in the unfinished road, and in an effort to shift his thoughts someplace safer, Dean pulls open the glove compartment to find a collection of old spark plugs and burned out brake light bulbs.

“Old owners didn't even clean it out,” he mutters, and Castiel looks over at him with a raised brow.

“What?”

The car veers sharply to the right as Castiel turns his head, and Dean reaches over to straighten the wheel.

“Eyes on the road, Andretti.”

Castiel narrows his eyes, but does as he's told, and they follow the road all the way to the towns edge without incident. When he pulls into a side street, shifting into reverse to turn around, the stick jams a little, and he lets out a frustrated sound as he jiggles it into place. Immediately, it reminds Dean of his fantasies the night before, and shame crawls under his skin. His face feels hot and his stomach tenses, and he tells himself, don't think about it. Not now. But the thoughts won't go away. Before long, the air in the car feels thick, too warm and too dry, and when the brakes squeal noisily as they finally pull to a stop back outside the bunker, Dean clears his throat.

“See?” Castiel says, looking over smugly as he shuts off the ignition, “I told you it was safe.”

“Yeah, so far so good. I guess you're a fast learner.”

For reasons he's not entirely sure of, Dean reaches across to pat Castiel's shoulder before climbing out of the car, and ends up petting his cheek instead. Even with his limited social skills, Castiel looks slightly perturbed by the awkward gesture. Dean just hopes he isn't going to ask questions. He's got no good excuse lined up, and he'd rather not switch over to his default deterrent of be-an-asshole-until-left-alone if he can help it

His worries prove unfounded. At the bunker's door Castiel stops him with a brief hug, and Dean lets himself relax a little. Still, his smile feels tight.

“Thank you,” Castiel tells him, pulling away. Dean tries not to miss the warmth of him too much.

“Didn't do anything,” he replies gruffly, and nods his thanks while Castiel holds the door for him.

He pointedly ignores the look of exasperation on his face.

Downstairs, Sam's sitting at the map table, reading something on his laptop with a furrowed brow. He looks up when they walk in, closing the computer.

“So, what's the verdict?” he asks Dean, “safe enough to drive?”

“It'll do,” Dean tells him, and pointedly ignores Castiel's eye roll, focusing instead on Sam's laptop, “you got something there?”

“Maybe?” Sam says, turning the computer around to show them, “I mean, it's not exactly something we can do anything about, but what do you think?”

Castiel leans over to look at it with Dean, and Dean tries not to notice his warmth along his shoulder as he reads.

SPONTANEOUS GROWTH OF WORMWOOD AT DAER

South Lanarkshire, Scotland: Scientists collecting water and sediment samples for a routine quality check at Daer Reservoir have reported an unusual growth of wormwood around the Scottish catchment facility.  
The first growth was noticed by hydrologist Ronald Lister, who reported seeing around ten of the plants during his May 17th sample collection. On returning for a secondary sample the following day, he was shocked to find that the number of plants had tripled.

Landscapers called in to remove the plants had their work cut out for them—despite digging up all traces of the plants, they were back the following day. This exercise has been repeated no less than eight times since their first appearance, and no solution has yet been found.

“They literally shoot up overnight,” Lister said, “I've never seen anything like it.”

Though the water quality appears unaffected, the continued regrowth of the plants has scientists baffled, and authorities will continue to regulate the water quality until a solution is found.

Dean finishes reading and looks back up at Sam with a frown.

“Wormwood?” Dean says, unsure where Sam is going with this, “we already killed War. Like, five years ago.”

“Well, to be fair, we neutralized War,” Sam says, “not killed. And anyway, I'm not thinking that. I'm wondering if maybe this might be related to the angel fall.”

“The dates do coincide,” Castiel agrees, “and though wormwood is indeed related to War, it's not exclusively his. There are a number of angels for whom it could be a possible form.”

“A possible form?” Dean repeats, looking over his shoulder at Castiel, “the hell does that mean?”

“When an angel falls to earth, if they don't have a vessel to enter, they must either create one or drift in the ether eternally. I'm sure you can appreciate why the second choice isn't exactly a common one.”

“Wait, if you can create vessels, then why—”

Castiel shakes his head before Sam can finish.

“A sentient form is at once too complex and too fragile for an angel to construct. In the absence of a well-timed pregnancy in the area of their fall, as Anna was lucky enough to experience, an angel is forced to funnel their entire being into something new, rather than their grace alone. Were I not already the sole occupant of this body, it is likely that I would have had to rearrange my being into one of the plants that are connected to me.”

“So what you're saying is you were almost a fucking cactus,” Dean says, a little dumbfounded, and Sam sends him the most intense stink eye he's ever seen.

“I'm not associated with any cacti,” Castiel says simply, “more likely I'd have been a cluster of hyssop shrubs. Or some variety of mistletoe, if I had the wherewithal to choose.”

Dean rubs his hand over his face.

“Jesus Christ.”

“I am glad it didn't come to that,” he says, as if they needed to be told, and Dean just nods vaguely.

“Same here, Cas,” Sam says.

Castiel smiles over at Sam. Dean, meanwhile, is still trying to wrap his head around the idea that Castiel was this fucking close to being a shrub. As far as wake up calls go, it's kind of a harsh one.

One more chance, he'd asked for. This is that chance, he thinks, and the thought makes him tense all over. He knows he's been acting like kind of an ass, and when it comes down to it, he should just be glad that Castiel is here with them, and he's okay. It's enough, he tells himself. It has to be enough.

When he finally tunes back in to the conversation, Castiel is telling Sam that while he believes that the freak growth of wormwood is very likely one of his brothers or sisters, there's nothing they could do about it, even if it were in a closer location.

The waiting game continues. Dean can't help but be a little relieved.

 

A little after seven that night, Dean heads out into the library with his keys in his hand. He drums his free knuckle over the table top. Sam and Castiel both look up at him from their books.

“I'm going out,” he announces, “don't wait up.”

He had the idea halfway through dinner—go out, get laid, work out the tension that's been driving him crazy. He figures it'll help. The fact that he's in the middle of the longest dry spell of his adult life at the same time as being constantly exposed to Castiel is just compounding things, and he figures that if he can at least take care of half of the problem, the whole situation will be a little easier.

Naturally, the universe doesn't want to let him.Castiel closes his book.

“Where are you going?”

“Bar.”

“I'll come with you,” he says, standing, “give me a moment.”

Castiel is gone, hurrying down the hall toward his room before Dean can respond, and he's seriously tempted to slip out the door before he comes back. But Sam's right here, and he knows that if he does his brother won't let him hear the end of it.

“You wanna come too?” he asks hopefully.

“Nah.”

“You sure?” Dean asks, giving Sam the least subtle look he can muster, the one that says please for the love of all that is holy come with us, but Sam just scrunches up his nose.

“I'm kinda tired.”

Castiel is back before he can convince Sam to change his mind, slipping his arms into his black coat—God, he looks good in that coat—and he looks at Dean with a grin.

“I'm ready.”

Fuck, Dean thinks.

“Awesome,” he says, glancing down at his jerk of a brother, who just yawns and tells them to have fun.

As he unlocks the Impala, Dean breathes out slowly through his nose and tells himself he needs to get over it. Suck it up. Move on. Nothing is ever going to happen, and he's better off just accepting that as fact and recognizing each and every moment that suggests otherwise as one of Castiel's weird non-human things.

By the time they're both in the car, he's got a plan of action.

It's only when they stop talking and start staring at each other—one of Cas' weird non-human things, he reminds himself—that he finds himself really struggling to push down his feelings. He's been managing this for years because most of the time when Castiel was around it was in a life or death situation. It's only because they have all this quiet time that he's struggling so much.

So, he thinks, he'll just have to keep them both occupied, make sure there are no quiet moments. Maybe try and meet someone tonight after all. Hell, maybe he could even find someone for Cas while he's at it. It's all a little easier to consider in the dark car, with the loud crunch of Motörhead filling in the space between them. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel, mouthing the lyrics to Ace of Spades.

When Castiel reaches out to change the radio station, Dean slaps his hand away.

“Driver's choice, Cas,” he says to the annoyed expression on his face, “them's the rules.”

“Says who?”

“It's in the, uh... constitution.”

Castiel narrows his eyes.

“I'm not an idiot, Dean.”

“You're also not driving.”

Dean turns up the volume, and decides that perhaps deliberately irritating Castiel will help make this a little easier, too. A little low-level annoyance to keep things good. It's not his best plan, all things considered, but it's the best he can come up with right now.

The bar, Morrissey's, isn't far away, and within a few minutes he pulls into a parking space across the street. It's the only bar for miles. As a result, the clientele is a mixed bunch; truckers and old drunks mingling with the few twenty-somethings who haven't yet left the small town behind. In the time it takes for the two of them to cross the street, the door swings open twice to let out a few people, and the sound of music rolls out into the dark.

There's a booth free against the wall. Dean points it out when they walk in.

“I'll go get us a couple of beers.”

Castiel waves him off.

“I'll go,” he says, determined, and Dean sits down, watching him weave through the people. Halfway there he stops and turns, heading back with a sheepish expression, “I don't have any money.”

With a laugh, Dean holds out a twenty, and Castiel takes it. By the time he's gesturing to the bartender for attention, Dean's staring, slipping easily back into the state he was trying to avoid. As much as he hates this constant ache of want, of desire for things to change between them, he's happy when they're together. Comfortable and content and happy.

These are things he can't afford to feel, can't afford to let get the better of him, but just for tonight, maybe he can let himself enjoy it. One night. One night, and if at the end of it he finds himself still unable to stop the ache of need from overwhelming him, he'll figure something out. One night. He can do this.

He's watching Castiel cram change into his pocket when someone stops beside him, and he turns to see a tall woman with a wide smile and honey eyes looking at him with interest. She's pretty, and from the way she's eying him, she thinks he looks alright, too.

“This seat taken?” she asks, her gold-lacquered nails dancing over the side of the booth. Dean flashes a grin and lets his flirting autopilot take over.

“Is now,” he says easily, sticking out a hand, “Dean.”

“Nice to meet you, Dean,” she says, taking his hand in hers and briefly squeezing it before slipping into the seat beside him, “I'm Bree.”

“Isn't that a type of cheese?”

Dean looks up to find Castiel standing by the booth, two beers in his hands, casting an unimpressed frown toward Bree.

“It's spelled differently,” she says acidly, and he sits heavily in the empty seat on the opposite side, shoving a beer toward Dean. Bree's eyes narrow a little. “Who are you?”

“Castiel,” he tells her, though he's looking at Dean.

“And you're making fun of my name?” she scoffs, and Dean already feels like tear-assing right the fuck out of the bar because this woman is about three seconds away from slapping someone. He shuffles slightly away from her on his seat.

“I didn't make fun,” Castiel says, turning toward her with a cool gaze, “I merely recognized it's similarity in pronunciation to a type of pressed milk curd.”

“What?”

“Milk curd. It's what cheese is made of,” Castiel informs her, speaking more slowly as if it's her ability to understand simple sentences that's causing confusion, rather than the fact that he's rambling about dairy products for no apparent reason, “it might interest you to know that too much makes Dean gassy.”

Dean's eyes widen.

“Dude,” he hisses under his breath, “lay off.”

Bree stands up to leave.

“Have a good night,” she says, though the tone makes it sound a lot more like go fuck yourself.

She's gone in seconds, and Dean groans, smacking his head back against the seat. Castiel frowns until she's disappeared into a group of people on the opposite side of the bar. He picks up his beer.

“She was rude,” he says, and takes a deep pull. Dean just stares at him.

“Are you kidding me, Cas?”

Putting down his drink, Castiel looks at Dean, calculating.

“You were going to try to go home with her,” he says presently, “weren't you?”

Dean's skin prickles hot, and he's not sure whether it's from embarrassment or anger or the fact that Castiel looks all kinds of good when he's pissed off.

“Would've been nice,” he says, and Castiel glares at him.

“And how were you expecting I would get back to the bunker?”

“Maybe you should've thought of that before you decided to be my shadow tonight,” Dean snaps, and sees a brief moment of hurt flicker across Castiel's features before it's replaced by irritation.

“If you didn't want me to come,” he says, leaning forward, “you should have just told me so.”

Dean groans.

“Of course I wanted you to come,” he says, and finds it's not as much of a lie as he'd like it to be.

“Then what are you complaining about?”

“I—” Dean bites back his retort, exhaling hard through his nose, “are we seriously having this argument?”

“I don't know,” Castiel redirects his frown toward his beer, “I'd rather not.”

“Me neither.”

For an uncomfortable couple of minutes, they sit in silence, and Dean twists his drink around in his hands, wondering how to move past this stupid fight. In the end, he decides it'd be a hell of a lot easier to just pretend it never happened, so he tosses the rest of his beer back and stands.

“You wanna play some pool?”

Looking up at him, Castiel's face settles into a smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners. Dean's stomach flips hopelessly.

“Okay,” he says.

Without waiting for him to change his mind, Dean leads the way.

“You know how to play?” he asks, lifting the cue ball from the pocket and rolling it over his knuckles. He nearly drops it, and grabs at it with his other hand, placing it down on the table and hoping nobody saw.

“I understand the rules, yes,” Castiel says with a smirk, and Dean knows he witnessed the failed attempt at showing off.

“Awesome,” he says, grabbing the triangle, “loser gets laundry duty.”

Castiel prods the blue cube of chalk, rubbing the residue between his thumb and forefinger, and looks up at Dean.

“How about Sam gets laundry duty, and we just play a game?”

Dean lets out a laugh, moving the triangle to it's place on the green felt.

“I like the way you think, Cas.”

While Castiel grins, Dean goes about setting up their game. He finds out quickly that he's outmatched. Despite having not played before, Castiel's innate understanding of physics translates directly into some ridiculous skill, and he wins game after game.

“I thought you were good at this,” he says after sinking the eight ball again, and Dean pulls a face at him.

“Nobody likes a smartass,” he says, and digs through his pocket for some change, eyes on the nearby jukebox, “if I'm gonna beat you, I need some better music.”

He makes his selection—Eye Of The Tiger—and waves Castiel over.

“We get two plays,” he says, “you can choose the other one.”

“I don't know what any of these are.”

“Sure you do,” Dean says, pointing in at the labels, “you've seen most of these in my car, right?”

“Some of them.”

“So choose one you like. You need another drink?”

Castiel nods, handing Dean his empty bottle, distracted as he looks at the list of songs.

“Which one do you like?” he asks, and Dean shrugs, walking backwards to the bar.

“Anything but Jefferson Starship.”

“There's a Jefferson Airplane on here,” Castiel calls back, and Dean makes a noise of disgust.

“If it's got anything to do with flying machines or people named Jefferson, don't choose it.”

Castiel frowns, squinting in at the selections, before his lips lift in a smile and he enters his choice. By the time Dean gets back to the pool table, Eye Of The Tiger is well underway, and Castiel has set up a new game.

“I'm gonna kick your ass this time,” Dean says once he's broken, handing over his beer.

“Good luck,” Castiel tells him.

As Dean lines up the cue, the song fades out. He's just about to call his shot when a familiar riff starts playing, and he knocks the ball sideways, messing up his shot completely. Castiel is smirking at him from beside the table.

“Seriously?” Dean asks, and the look on Castiel's face tells Dean he knows exactly what he did, “you chose the exact same song?”

A couple of other patrons, look over at them, unimpressed by the Survivor double-play, and Dean frowns, handing the pool cue back to Castiel.

“I wanted to see if it would actually make you a better player,” Castiel tells him, lining up his own shot, “evidently it has had the opposite effect. Eleven in the side pocket.”

He hits the ball in a smooth movement, and it goes exactly where he said it would. When he stands up straight, he looks so pleased with himself Dean almost wants to throttle him.

“That's cheating,” he says, “I'm about ninety five percent sure that's cheating.”

“You might still win,” Castiel tells him with a shrug.

He doesn't. For the fifth time in a row, Castiel wins the game, and hours pass swiftly over the pool table.

Slowly, Dean backs off on his drinking, nursing a scotch while Castiel orders beer after beer for himself, and as his coordination fails Dean manages to win two games. By the time they decide to leave, Castiel is plastered and demanding Dean drive them home via someplace that sells burritos.

He doesn't seem willing to accept that no such place exists in Lebanon.

But the moment they step out of the bar, Dean feels it. A shift.

There's nothing noticeably wrong in the empty street—no lurking shadows, no signs of trouble—but there's something. Something just outside of his field of vision.

He glances over at Castiel, loose-limbed, rumpled and smiling, and for a moment he forgets about the uneasy feeling as it's taken over by the warmth in his belly. Castiel stumbles a little on the uneven pavement, and as Dean catches his shoulder to steady him, it happens again. A wave of cold energy, crackling. He narrows his eyes, looking for the source, his grip tightening on Castiel's shoulder.

“You feel that?” he asks, and Castiel blinks at him slowly before reaching up and clutching his wrist with smooth fingers.

“It's very warm,” he says, a vague kind of smile on his face, and Dean snorts.

“Not my hand, you dork,” he says, pulling it away, “the...”

He trails off, wiggling his hand in the air.

“That's still your hand,” Castiel tells him, squinting, and staggers away, “I think you're drunk.”

“Look who's talking.”

“This is not what I had in mind, Castiel.”

The voice floats out from the alley behind them, and Dean turns, arm out to shield Castiel before he knows who it is. But he knows that voice. It's grating, and it's smug, and he's connected it to a face a split second before Metatron steps out of the shadow. Dean's fist clenches.

“I wouldn't come any closer if I were you,” he says, despite his only weapon being the demon knife in his boot, and Metatron smiles at him as if he knows it, “I mean it, asshole. Back off.”

“I gave you very clear instructions,” Metatron goes on, ignoring Dean completely, “didn't I?”

“Probably,” Castiel slurs, stepping closer, and Dean grabs at his arm to stop him from getting any further, “but I'm not in the habit of following orders when they come from d—d—douchebags.”

Castiel hiccups halfway through the last word, and Dean keeps his grip tight.

“There's no need for petty name calling,” Metatron says, “I'm just here to talk.”

“Then spit it out,” Dean tells him.

“Not talking to you, Dean,” Metatron replies, before returning his gaze to Castiel, who hiccups loudly.

“You're drunk,” he says, sounding for all the world like a disappointed parent.

“I'm enjoying myself,” Castiel replies.

“And I encourage you to do that. But here?” Metatron purses his lips, “with him?”

“You plannin' on getting to the point any time soon?” Dean asks, and Metatron sighs as if he's been greatly put-upon. He looks at Dean with irritation, and at once Dean is looking at nothing but air.

He whips around, wide eyed, panicked; the street is completely empty. Metatron and Castiel are gone.

“Cas!” he bellows, and has his phone in his hand before he's consciously thought of making the call. Sam doesn't pick up. The call rings out, and he tries again before leaving a message.

“Sam, call me back. Metatron has Cas.”

He shoves his cell back in his pocket and paces to the end of the alleyway again, looking helplessly around for some clue as to where they might have gone. There's nothing, of course. Metatron just zapped Castiel away on a wing and a prayer, probably to Heaven or the distant past or some fucking greenroom like the one Zachariah kept in Van Nuys.

There's the faint scent of ozone in the air, and on the ground where Castiel had been standing is a crumpled receipt from the bar. Dean kicks at it in frustration, and his toe strikes something else. It's small and blue and goes skittering across the asphalt before clanging loudly against a dumpster.

Making his way over, Dean crouches down to pick it up.

It's the stone from the bunker's basement; the lapis lazuli pendant he gave to Castiel weeks ago. It's warm in his palm, and he holds it tightly in his closed fist, waiting. There's not much else he can do.

His cell rings, startling him, and he presses it to his ear.

“I don't know where they went,” he says before Sam can get a word out.

“What did he want?”

“To talk, apparently. That's all he said. That he gave Cas clear instructions that he didn't follow, and that he wanted to talk. Then he just mojo'd them both who knows where.”

“Where are you?”

“Outside the bar. We were just leaving.”

“Do you want me to come—”

Dean shakes his head.

“There's nothing here,” he says, clenching his hand around the pendant, “I'll stick around, see if they come back, but... you think you could check the books? Maybe there's some way to locate him.”

“On it,” Sam says, “And Dean? He'll be okay.”

“Yeah. He better be.”

Sam hangs up, and Dean shoves his phone into his pocket. When his cell rings again, almost half an hour later, Dean is about ten seconds away from a complete meltdown. Castiel's name flashes on the screen. He answers breathlessly.

“Cas?”

“Yeah, it's me.”

Running his hand over his face, Dean's entire body sags with relief.

“Where are you? Are you okay?”

Castiel sighs.

“I'm fine. Metatron is gone,” he says, “and I'm in McAllen, Texas.”

“He dropped you in Texas?”

“Yes.”  
“Why Texas?”

“I don't know,” Castiel says, “at least he had the decency to remove all the alcohol from my system. I don't think I could easily deal with this if I was still intoxicated.”

Making his way across the street toward the Impala, Dean digs his keys out of his pocket.

“Yeah, what a fucking saint,” he says, yanking open the door, “It'll take me a while to get to you.”

“I can meet you in the middle.”

“How?”

“I'll drive.”

“You'll drive what?”

There's the sound of an engine starting in answer, and Dean raises his eyebrows.

“Cas, are you stealing a car?”

“These are extenuating circumstances,” he replies, “and I hardly think you're one to judge when it comes to commandeering vehicles.”

“Wow. I'm definitely a bad influence on you.”

Castiel huffs in amusement, and as Dean climbs into the drivers seat he hears him shuffling something around.

“It looks like the mid point is around Dallas,” Castiel says after a moment, “we could meet there.”

Dean pulls his own map out of the glove compartment.

“No, Dallas is too big,” he says, spreading the map wide over the passenger seat. Dragging his finger down over Texas, he sees a familiar town. “Okay, go past Dallas. There's a town called Sanger about half an hour north, it's got a Biggerson's on the main strip. I'll meet you there.”

“Okay.”

“Look after yourself,” Dean tells him, “and drive within the limit. It's less likely you'll get pulled over that way.”

“I will.”

He calls Sam back on speaker, already heading south, and tells him what's going on. Not that he has much idea himself.

“Come via the bunker,” Sam tells him.

“What, no—”

“Dean, you drove all day yesterday, and now you've been out all night drinking. You're not gonna drive another eight hours non-stop today. I'll be outside.”

Sam hangs up on him before he can argue, and Dean hits the gas a little harder, heading toward the turnoff. True to his word, Sam is waiting, and he makes Dean switch to the passenger seat.

“You're gonna pass out behind the wheel,” he says.

“I'm fine—”

“In that case, you can navigate,” he says, staring Dean down and holding the door open, and to avoid an argument Dean slides over to the other seat. Despite being adamant that he's not tired, he falls asleep somewhere around Salina. He doesn't wake up until Sam nudges him in the shoulder to tell him they've arrived.

“Told you,” Sam says, and Dean rolls his eyes, stretching as he climbs out of the car.

It's almost half past nine in the morning, and they find Castiel sitting alone in a Biggerson's booth, glaring at a cup of black coffee. He doesn't look up when they come in. It's not until they slide into the booth that he notices them.

“You okay?” Dean asks when Castiel meets his eye.

“I'm fine. I just want to go home.”

“You and me both, buddy,” Dean says, flagging down a waiter, “let's get some breakfast and then we'll hit the road.”

“So what did he want?” Sam asks once their meals have come out, “did he say anything about the other angels?”

“I asked if there was anyone left,” Castiel says, “and all he said was that the worthy will eventually return to Heaven.”

“So some of them must have survived, at least,” Dean says, and Castiel nods.

“As for what he wanted...” Castiel lifts his mug to his lips, taking a large gulp of coffee before he continues, “before he cast the angels from Heaven, when he'd just taken my grace, he told me that I was to live a normal human life. It seems he doesn't think I've been doing that.”

“Wait, he's been keeping tabs on you?”

Castiel clears his throat, nodding.

“He's been watching me,” he pauses, taking the maple syrup Sam holds out to him and pouring a little over his short stack, “watching us, I suppose.”

“But what's his endgame?” Dean asks, “I mean, he's already booted everyone out of Heaven, what else can he want?”

“I don't know,” Castiel says, though his eyes shift away and down, and Dean leans forward over the table.

“Cas, what did he say to you?”

Glancing back up, Castiel seems to weigh his words carefully.

“He... for some reason, he said that it was imperative that I...”

“That you what?”

“Procreate,” Castiel says, his mouth twisting around the word like it's something sour.

Of all the possible responses, that was not the one Dean was expecting. With a glance at Sam, he sees he's not the only one surprised.

“I don't know why, but he's oddly fixated on it,” Castiel goes on, fidgeting uncomfortably, “it's why he left me in McAllen. It has the highest ratio of women to men in the United States. He thought I'd be more likely to...”

“What?”

“Find a suitable mate,” he says reluctantly, as if quoting, and his expression is one of disgust.

Across the booth, Sam is looking at him with a pinched expression on his face.

“That's the creepiest thing I've ever heard,” Dean says, and Castiel makes a noise of agreement, returning his focus to the pancakes before him.

They arrive back at the bunker late that afternoon, and Dean claps his hands together as he walks into the library.

“Okay, first things first,” he says, looking around the space, “we gotta put a stop to Peeping Tron.”

Sam snorts.

“What?” Dean asks.

“How long have you been sitting on that one?”

Grinning proudly, Dean shrugs.

“Thought it up when we stopped for lunch,” he admits, and Sam laughs again, shaking his head. Castiel just looks mildly confused.

“So anyway, I'll take care of the angel-proofing outside,” Dean goes on, turning to Castiel and gesturing toward a few bare patches on the walls that should fit all the sigils, “you can put some up in here.”

“Why weren't they up to begin with?”

“You needed to be able to get in.”

Castiel looks thoroughly unimpressed with this answer, but Dean chooses to ignore it.

“Sammy, you wanna take a look through the translations Kevin left behind? See if there's anything in there that might tell us why he's gung-ho for Cas to knock someone up.”

Sam pulls a face at Dean's choice of words, but he nods all the same, heading over to the shelf where Kevin's work on the angel tablet is still piled haphazardly between the sections on anthroposophy and the faerie realm and taking down the stack of notebooks.

Heading for the staircase, Dean pats his pockets, looking for his knife, and feels the bump of the lapis lazuli pendant. He'd forgotten it was there.

“Oh, hey, Cas—” he says, turning back as he digs it out.

The gold flecks in the blue stone stand out brightly in the light of the war room, like a night sky in the desert. Dean rubs it on his sleeve, wiping away the pocket dust that's collected in the engraving. He holds it out for Castiel.

“Found it after Metatron zapped you,” he says.

Frowning, Castiel walks over and takes it, weighing it in his palm.

“Didn't know you'd been carrying it around,” Dean adds, and Castiel looks a little self-conscious at his words.

“It was in my pocket,” he says.

“I think I saw some cord in the storage room,” Dean suggests, “if you want to wear it around your neck, maybe? Harder to lose that way.”

“That's a good idea,” Castiel says, expression softening a little as he slips the stone back into his pocket, “thank you.”

 

The next day, Dean has just finished making himself comfortable in front of the TV when he realizes he hasn't seen Castiel in a while.

He's been off in some other part of the bunker all morning, and Dean pauses with the remote control raised, finger hovering over the play button while he tries to decide whether or not he should go find him.

On the one hand, he's aware that he should just be grateful for the fact that he doesn't have to actively avoid him right now. On the other hand, he wants to hang out with him. Really wants to. He's about to watch Back to the Future, and he just knows that Castiel will get nitpicky about the faulty science. He'll get that little furrow, that crease in his brow, and Dean's pretty sure that seeing it will be worth his own inevitable frustration.

Fuck it, he thinks, and with a grunt he gets up from the couch and makes his way through the halls.

When he finds him, he's shirtless and damp-haired, standing in front of the fogged mirror in the bathroom. As Dean knocks on the door frame, he looks up with a frown.

“You alright, Cas?”

“I'm...” he wrinkles his nose as he searches for the phrase, “out of shape.”

“Huh.”

The humanness of the issue is jarring enough to render Dean utterly dumbfounded for a moment.  
From where he's standing, Castiel looks the same as ever. He's always been lean and toned, and looking at him now, Dean can't really see much difference. He's perhaps a little softer in the middle, but no more than Dean is himself when they haven't been on a hunt in a while.

Basically, Castiel looks good. More than good. Dean clears his throat. Keep it PG, he tells himself.

“You look fine to me,” he says, figuring this is some sort of newly-human insecurity thing that Castiel is going through, and one half-assed compliment will be enough to snap him out of it, “come upstairs. It's movie time. I'll make popcorn.”

Turning back to the mirror, Castiel inspects his body from a slightly different angle.

“I didn't say I looked bad,” he says, as if Dean is an idiot, “I said I'm out of shape. I first noticed while we were out looking for Crowley in the woods, and again when I was left in McAllen.”

“Yeah?”

“Jimmy used to run for exercise,” Castiel says, and when Dean doesn't say anything he goes on, “when I took this body, I promised him I'd look after it, and that meant keeping it in the condition I found it in. I have become lax in that regard.”

Stepping further into the bathroom, Dean looks. And looks. There's a tiny—seriously, blink and you'll miss it minuscule—roll of fat just above his waistband. Castiel pinches it between his fingers.

“Uhuh...” Dean says, and Castiel glances back at him in the mirror, “you do realize you're never going to be in the exact same shape Jimmy was in when you first started joyriding, right?”

“Still, I should start exercising. We both should.”

“Excuse me?”

“You're out of shape, too.”

Dean's mouth falls open.

“It's because of your poor diet,” Cas continues, utterly oblivious to Dean's wounded expression, “which, unfortunately, is now my poor diet.”

Dean can't decide what offends him more; the dig at his fitness or the fact that apparently Castiel has been less than impressed with the food he's been making. There aren't many things Dean can do that he's particularly proud of, or that he feels like he should be proud of, anyway, but cooking is one of them. He'd thought Castiel had appreciated the meals he's been slaving over in the kitchen since the fiasco with the burgers and the failed tacos that everyone is so damn eager to mention at the drop of a hat. Evidently he was wrong.

“Are you saying you don't like what I've been cooking?” he asks, incredulous, “because you've been cooking it too, Cas.”

“No, quite the contrary. The nachos are delicious,” he says, still inspecting himself in the mirror, “as are the home fries and the pizza and the pies—Dean, the pies. But are you starting to see the problem?”

“No,” Dean says defiantly, though he has a feeling he's about to hear a Sam-level health-food rant.

“It's not healthy. And that's not even taking all the beer and soda into account.”

Dean rolls his eyes.

“Well, I've been eating all that stuff forever, and I'm fine.”

“You're only fine because I've spent the entire time I've known you ensuring that both you and Sam were in peak physical condition.”

“You did?”

Castiel huffs as if the question is an insult—and maybe it is, considering the guy was practically their guardian angel, though Dean generally tried not to think of him that way.

“Sam never needed much help, but you,” he looks at Dean's reflection as though he's a particularly difficult child, “I used to clear your arteries every time I healed you or flew you somewhere.”

“You... what?”

“If I hadn't you'd likely have had a heart attack by now.”

“Thanks, I guess?”

Turning away from the mirror to lean against the sink, Castiel looks at him with a smile.

“You're welcome,” he says.

Dean doesn't look at the smooth tan skin of his chest or the blue pendant hanging in the dip of his throat or the narrow trail of dark hair running down from his navel. Definitely doesn't look at the freckle over his right nipple. In fact, he studiously inspects his own thumbnail, avoiding looking at him at all.

“But since I no longer have 'mojo', you and I are going to need to start looking after ourselves a little better.”

He looks up at that. Castiel seriously needs to put a shirt on.

“You and I?” he repeats, “What about Sam?”

“Where is Sam right now?” Castiel asks pointedly.

“He went for a run,” Dean says, then his face falls, “oh.”

“He also consumes substantially less sugar and saturated fat than we do.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get you.”

Dean walks up to the mirror and lifts his shirt, looking side on at his stomach. Though it's not exactly flat, it's fine. Normal. He has a little extra padding around the middle, but it's not as though he's struggling to get things done or fit into his clothes. But Castiel is giving him a look, and he knows he's been doomed to a life of treadmills and rowing machines.

“Fine,” he groans, pulling his shirt back down roughly and scowling at Castiel, “but I'm telling you right now, I am not going to start running around the block in short shorts like Usain Bolt out there.”

Castiel narrows his eyes and doesn't bother asking who that is.

“Well, what do you propose?”

“This place has a gym,” Dean says with a shrug, heading back out into the hall, “we might as well use it.”

The gym is on the lower level, just beyond the firing range, and after stopping by his room to switch his jeans and henley for track pants and a t-shirt, he makes his way downstairs. Castiel is already there, waiting by the door.

“What should we do?” he asks, and Dean looks around the wide room for inspiration.

There are weights over by the back wall—a rack of bar bells and dumbbells touched by nobody in the past sixty years—and a lone basketball hoop beside a door that leads to an overfull storage room. Apparently Sam has been playing.

Dean grabs the ball from where it's been dumped beneath the hoop and bounces it a few times, switching from hand to hand.

“I guess we'll play some ball,” he says.

An hour later, Dean regrets everything.

Not just agreeing to this whole exercise thing, but his entire life. He's not actually sure why he exists any more. He's pretty sure he shouldn't. It'd be better if he didn't.

Everything aches. His legs are wobbly; his lungs burn. It's not like he's actually out of shape, it's just that the muscles he's been working aren't the same muscles he's used to working. Laying flat on the floor, sweat beading on his neck, he feels like standing up is an impossible task best left for other people to deal with. Standing is for schmucks, he thinks. Better to stay down on the floor where its comfortable.

Beside him, Castiel is sitting with his elbows on his knees, rolling his head from side to side.

“Should we do this daily?” he asks, stretching his arms up over his head, “or do you think that would be excessive?”

“I quit,” Dean says in response, and Castiel glances across at him with narrowed eyes.

“You can't quit. I told you—I can't keep you healthy any more.”

“I got along just fine for...” he counts in his head, “Twenty-nine years before you came along. And I don't care what you say. I haven't gone out of shape since you lost your mojo.”

“What's this, then?”

Castiel reaches across to prod Dean in the belly, and Dean slaps his hand away angrily, more than a little humiliated.

“Quit it.”

“Either exercise or start eating well,” Cas tells him sternly.

“Either shut up or fuck off,” Dean snaps back, draping his arm over his eyes to block out the too-bright fluorescent lights and his asshole of a friend.

As if it isn't hard enough living with someone he has unrequited feelings for, now he's being insulted on top of it. He'd hoped that one of the few upsides of Castiel becoming human might be him gaining a better understanding of tact. Somehow it seems as though he's only become worse.

Castiel sighs, standing, and stretches. He looks down at Dean.

“Are you coming? We can watch that movie now.”

“In a minute.”

Castiel waits for what Dean assumes is a perfectly timed minute before he speaks again and Dean just barely resists the urge to kick him in the shins.

“Do you need help to get up?”

“Not from you.”

He still doesn't leave, and Dean can feel him staring. He ignores him in the hope that he'll give up. It's futile.

“Dean,” he says, clearly no intention of going anywhere.

“What?”

“Look at me.”

Dean moves his arm to glare up at Castiel, who's looking down at him with concern, half-silhouetted by the overhead lights.

“Did I offend you?”

“What gave you that idea?”

“I didn't mean to cast aspersions on your appearance.”

Kiss my ass-persions, Dean thinks. He doesn't bother saying it aloud.

"Dean, this truly isn't about how you look.”

“Oh my god, stop talking.”

“Only when you understand how ridiculous it is to conflate your physical appearance with your self worth.”

“Cas—”

“I'm merely concerned for your health,” Castiel goes on, more than a little agitated, “unless you start looking after yourself, you're going to end up with heart disease by the time you're fifty. I'd like you to survive much longer than that.”

Dean huffs, unconvinced, and the furrow in Castiel's brow deepens. Dean doesn't bother pointing out to him how unrealistic it is to even think he's still going to be alive at fifty. That's an argument for another day. 

For long moment Castiel is silent, as if weighing his next words. He takes a deep breath before he speaks.

“If it helps,” he says slowly, “I'm certain that no matter what, I will always think you pulchritudinous.”

With that he leaves, and Dean pushes up onto his elbows to stare after him in confusion, trying to figure out what the hell language that was meant to be and whether or not he should feel insulted again.

The word follows him as he drags himself up from the floor, as he wipes the sweat from his face with his t-shirt, and on into the shower. As he rinses shampoo from his hair, he mouths it to himself over and over so as not to forget it.

Once he's dried and dressed, he makes his way into his room, and pulls up Google on his phone.

He types three phonetically spelled variations before the search engine figures out what he's trying to say, and when he finally finds the definition he has the distinct sensation that every last drop of his blood has rushed directly into his chest.

His much-abused heart struggles to hold it all in.

pul · chri · tu · di · nous [puhl-kri-tood-n-uhs]  
adj. used of persons only; characterized by great  
physical beauty and appeal  
see also: beautiful, exquisite, stunning

He's still sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at the screen, when Sam appears in his doorway to ask if he was planning to watch the DVD that's still paused on the menu screen, or if he can take it out.

“Uh, yeah,” Dean says, distracted, “go for it.”

Sam eyes him with suspicion, taking in the flushed cheeks and the phone in his hand, before he grins.

“Who're you texting? You meet someone at the bar?”

“I'm not texting anyone.”

“Sure you're not, Romeo.”

Dean pulls a face at him, and Sam leaves the room laughing. Dean closes the door behind him and collapses back onto the memory foam. When Sam comes back two hours later to ask if Dean's planning on making dinner any time soon, Dean tells him he's getting an early night.

“It's like... seven thirty.”

“Got a headache,” he lies.

It does the trick. Sam leaves and Dean stares up at the ceiling in silence.

There are brief three raps on the door a few minutes later, quieter than Sam ever is. No, he thinks, go away.

“Dean?”

The doorknob turns, and Dean rolls onto his side. He knows it's childish, but he has no idea how he's supposed to look at Castiel right now without speculating. He presses his eyes closed and pretends to be asleep.

The door creaks fully open, and there's the sound of soft footfalls as Castiel crosses the room. A glass is placed gently down on the bedside table, and Dean waits to hear the door close. For a long stretch of time, it doesn't. Even with his eyes closed, Dean can feel Castiel looking at him, and he wonders if it's obvious that he's faking, if Castiel is going to call him out on it. Just as he's beginning to weigh the pros and cons of admitting he's awake, he hears the shuffling of fabric, followed by the feeling of a blanket being draped over his shoulders. As it's smoothed down by warm hands, Dean barely lets himself breathe. He's frozen in place until he hears Castiel leave, pausing to switch off the lamp on his way.

Alone again, Dean exhales slowly, lost in some unstable tangle of hopeless misery and what seems a lot like happiness. His pulse is racing, thoughts running a mile a minute. He's not freaking out. He's pretty sure he's not freaking out. He tells himself so about twenty times before it occurs to him that the endless mental repetition is actually a good indication that freaking out is exactly what he's doing, and he rolls over to stare up at the ceiling.

Pulchritudinous, pulchritudinous, pulchritudinous.

He's been called good looking before.

If Castiel had just told him he was good looking, he's pretty sure he could have handled it. Same goes for attractive, or hell, even handsome. But pulchritudinous? That's getting into literary territory, and even with the dictionary definition rattling around in his head, Dean can't work out what in the flying fuck Castiel had meant.

Because, honestly? The more he thinks about it, the more it seems like Castiel is interested. Interested in the way Dean is interested. The way his lips had ticked up as he'd said it certainly doesn't make it easy to disprove the possibility. But it's ridiculous, Dean tells himself, because of course he isn't interested.

The blanket is warm and soft, and as he pulls it more tightly around himself, he realizes its the maroon one he'd bought weeks ago. Castiel's blanket.

Dean tries not to read into it; the bunker gets cold, after all, and he's done the same for Sam and Castiel and Kevin when they've fallen asleep on the couch or in the library. But he never smoothed it down over their shoulders like that. And it smells like Castiel, for Christ's sake. Like that fucking shampoo.

Dean groans, pulling his pillow over his face, and ignores the occasional shuffle and pause of feet in the hallway as Sam and Castiel wander from room to room, ignores the low murmur of their conversation, the distant clink of beer bottles, the canned laughter of a sit-com. The echoing laughter of his brother and his best friend.

This is stupid, he thinks. Just get up and go outside.

He tries to listen to his own advice for hours, but in the end he doesn't leave his room again until the bunker is silent.

It's well after midnight, and if the noise his stomach is making is anything to go by, it's about twenty minutes away from cannibalizing itself. He sneaks barefoot into the kitchen to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (or two), and when he opens the fridge to grab a drink, he sees a pizza box on the top shelf that definitely hadn't been there this afternoon. He almost laughs out loud at the blatant hypocrisy of Castiel chowing down on pizza after all that crap he'd spouted about about health food, but he's still too rattled to manage it.

He eats his sandwiches and goes back to bed.

He doesn't know what to do, or even if he should do anything.

For all he knows, Castiel was speaking from a completely objective standpoint. He probably would have said the same thing about a particularly nice looking landscape, he tells himself, and weird as he is, Castiel sure as hell isn't attracted to mountains.

Dean runs through the synonyms until he falls asleep.

A beautiful landscape. An exquisite landscape. A stunning landscape. Beautiful, exquisite, stunning. None of those make sense in relation to Dean. By morning, he's convinced himself that the best course of action is inaction.

He'll just pretend that Castiel never said anything. He'll act normal. Easy. It's not as though he's new to repression. He's managed to keep his feelings to himself for years, after all, and one confusing-but-probably-platonic compliment shouldn't make any difference whatsoever, even if it is compounded by the million little moments of maybe that his memory has started supplying him with against his will.

He walks into the kitchen at half past eight with a smile on his face, ready to fake his way through breakfast, and stops short in the doorway.

Castiel is leaning back with one hand curled around the edge of the sink, wearing what Dean is pretty sure is a pair of Sam's running shorts with a gray v-neck, and he's gulping down a bottle of water like he hasn't had a drink in days. With his head tilted back and Adam's apple bobbing, a trickle of water runs from the corner of his lip, down over his chin. Dean watches it roll through rough stubble, down, down, and then he's staring at his throat, at the pulse thrumming visibly beneath flushed, sweat-dampened skin. God, he wants to press his lips to that skin, to trace the—

“You feeling better?”

Dean looks away so fast he almost gives himself whiplash. He hadn't even noticed his brother was there.

It takes him a second to process the question, and he's opening the fridge by the time he answers. 

He's not sure what he even wants. He's hungry, though. He's definitely hungry. He glances back at Castiel, who's moving to sit down at the counter, and shakes his head to clear it before staring intently into the fridge.

“Yeah,” his voice comes out a little high.

“You seemed pretty out of it last night.”

When Dean risks looking up, Sam's pulling spoons out of the drawer and holding one out to Castiel.

“I guess I just needed some sleep,” he says, and fixes his gaze on a carton of eggs on the top shelf, though he makes no move to pick them up.

“So listen,” Sam says after a minute, sitting down to dig in to his yoghurt and granola with far too much enthusiasm, “Cas and I were thinking we'd head up to Grand Island today.”

“What d'you need all the way in Grand Island?”

“The mall. Gotta take my laptop to the repair place since someone killed it with cartoon porn viruses, and Cas needs proper running shoes,” Sam has the local newspaper spread open on the counter, and he doesn't look up as he speaks, skimming over the stories and flipping through, “the shoes you bought were okay for today, but they're just going to give him blisters.”

Dean straightens up, taking out the milk, though he's got no idea what he's planning to do with it.

“I also want a yoga mat,” Castiel announces, drizzling honey onto his granola.

Dean regrets ever leaving his room.

“Yoga?” he asks weakly, turning to look at him, and Castiel nods.

“While I was living with Daphne, we took a class three times a week. It's actually quite stimulating.”

“Oh.”

“It helps increase strength, flexibility and stamina,” Castiel continues, licking the excess honey off his fingers as if that's an even remotely acceptable thing to be doing while he's looking at Dean and talking about flexibility and stamina, “and it relieves tension.”

Dean thinks he's actually going to die. This is it. Any moment he's going to turn around and Tessa will be standing there with a placid smile, ready to lead him into the afterlife. So long, world, he thinks, thanks for nothing.

“You'd probably benefit from it, too,” Castiel goes on, “I'm surprised it's not more common among hunters, to be honest.”

“Right. Well, I'll... I'm just going to,” he's staring at Castiel's fingers, at his pink tongue as it darts out to catch the last drops of honey, not even sure what he's saying as he points vaguely out into the library, “yeah.”

“So do you wanna come with?” Sam asks, finally looking up from the paper as he scoops more granola onto his spoon.

“That's, uh. No. I've got stuff to... Okay. I'll see you guys when you—”

Dean trails off halfway out the door, walking blindly, and it's not until he reaches his room that he realizes he's still holding the milk. He considers taking it back for all of half a second. No way in hell is he going back into that minefield.

He drinks a quarter of the bottle out of sheer stubbornness, and his stomach rolls. Dean doesn't leave his room again until he hears Sam's shout of “Back later!” followed by the front door slamming, and even then he's flustered and dazed. Most of the day goes by without him noticing, and he's still pottering around looking for something to distract himself with six and a half hours later when Sam and Castiel get back.

They have a lot more than they'd set out for, and Sam, his arms laden down with bags, tells Dean to go outside and help Castiel.

“Dude—”

“I have to call Kevin back,” Sam says, holding up his phone.

“Why?

“There were a couple of pages missing from his tablet translations,” Sam says, “and he just texted me to say he found them mixed in with his comics.”

“Can't you call him later?”  
“Why are you being weird?” he asks.

“I'm not.”

Sam frowns at him. After a moment, Dean gives up and walks outside.

Castiel is leaning into the open trunk, t-shirt hitching up as he pulls out a heavy box of gardening supplies and small, potted seedlings. Dean helps him carry it all to the greenhouse, trying to put the image of him licking his fingers at breakfast out of his mind and failing horribly.

“What is all this stuff?” he asks in an attempt to derail his thoughts, and as they move the seedlings from the box onto the narrow shelf along the far wall, Castiel explains each one as he goes.

“Angelica, figwort and mullein are all useful for protection,” he says, placing the little pots carefully in a row, “agrimony wards off evil and dispels negativity, and vervain encourages peace and purification.”

He lifts a purple-flowered pot plant, bigger than the rest.

“This is hyssop,” he says, pointedly, and it takes Dean a couple of seconds to work out why the name sounds familiar.

“This was nearly you,” he says, and Castiel nods, pulling away a dead leaf before he puts the plant down on the work bench, “at least you would've been pretty.”

Castiel raises an eyebrow at that, and Dean clears his throat, picking up the last seedling from the box and inspecting it's familiar leaves.

“What about this one?” he asks.

“Cilantro,” Castiel says with a smile, “I like it in guacamole.”

Dean snorts, handing it over, and Castiel adds it to the shelf.

“I wish you would have come today,” Castiel tells him, moving to take the bag of potting mix from the box, “as much as I like spending time with Sam it's never quite the same without you there.”

“Yeah,” Dean says gruffly. He's inordinately pleased despite himself, and refuses to show it. “Maybe next time.”

He retreats from the greenhouse before he can say anything else, leaving Castiel to tend to the plants, and for the rest of the day he returns to his original tactic of avoidance. He doesn't like doing it, but it's better than the alternative where he analyzes every little thing Castiel says and does.

Because he's been given hope, and God damn it does he hate being hopeful when the odds are stacked against him.

It's laughable, really, that he's even thinking in terms of odds.

He spends the rest of the afternoon cleaning as a distraction, discovering in the process that the tiles in the upstairs bathroom are meant to be white, not yellowish-gray. There's a pattern of seashells that runs along the wall at eye level that hadn't been visible before. He's dizzy with the smell of bleach by the time he's finished, and he takes to the bunker with a broom.

Before long, there's not a dust bunny in sight.

The kitchen is spotless. A health code inspector could stick a white-gloved finger in the gap beneath the fridge, and it'd come out cleaner than it started. The only rooms he doesn't touch are the gym—where Castiel is busy setting up his new bike—its attached storage room, and Castiel's bedroom. He technically only manages to clean half of Sam's room before his brother finds him and kicks him out, but he's still counting it as a job well done.

Even with all his effort, there's a limit to how much he can avoid someone while living with them, and every time Castiel catches his eye he gets that awful nervous feeling in his stomach. More than once he flat out ignores Castiel when he calls him, and the guilt from that is worse than what he felt after his skeevy shower.

He directs all conversation toward his brother, and if either Sam or Castiel find it strange, they don't comment on it. Dean still feels like a jerk. He focuses on making dinner to minimise the guilt.

"So, Sammy, what did Kevin have to say?" he asks, stirring the pot of sauce, "do his pages have anything useful on Metatron?"

"Not as far as we can tell," Sam says, and launches into an explanation of everything that was on the tablet. It's all translated save for a small section that had been written in another language, and the best Kevin had been able to do was translate it to proto-Elamite cuneiform--an extinct language that is possibly less useful than the original tablet.

"If there's anything about what Metatron is up to, it's probably in that part," Sam says, leaning heavily on the kitchen counter while Dean drains the pasta.

At dinner, he tries to avoid conversation completely by pretending to read while he eats, but Sam almost flips the table when he splashes marinara sauce on their two hundred year old copy of The Goetia, and that particular tactic quickly gets shelved—along with the ruined book.

 

It's as he's walking from the firing range a couple of days later, having spent the better part of the morning practicing his aim and trying to work out exactly he's going to do about this whole thing with Castiel, that he hears two sets of footsteps coming down the stairs, headed for the gym.

Without thinking he ducks into the first room he sees.

He pulls the door shut with a heavy click just as they come around the corner, and stands stock still, hoping they didn't hear him. It's like some pathetic game of hide and go seek, and he tenses as their muffled voices move up the hallway, pausing just outside. When the door is pushed open, he's still standing there, frozen in the middle of the room like a complete idiot.

To his immense relief, Sam is on his own. He's looking at Dean as if he's got a screw loose.

Dean doesn't blame him.

Hopefully, he glances around, looking for some reason to have come in here, and comes up with absolutely nothing. The room is one they haven't bothered to do anything with yet. It's still got the army-issue cots, one pressed up against the wall on either side, a single empty tallboy between them, and not much else—not even any boxes he could pretend to be looking through.

Sam squints at him.

“What are you doing?”

Wracking his brain, Dean puffs out his cheeks, slaps his palms twice against his thighs, and wonders if dropping his pants and yelling “Pudding!” would work this time. Somehow he doubts it. He blows his breath out in a loud whoosh.

“Nothing,” he says, and moves to leave.

Sam steps to the side, effectively blocking the door. It's about the reaction Dean expected.

“Cas thinks you've been avoiding him," Sam says, straight off the bat, “gotta say, after the last couple of days I can kind of see where he's coming from.”

Crap, Dean thinks. He'd hoped it would be a while before either of them really noticed. Maybe a month, or a year, or if he was really lucky, the rest of his natural life.

“Why would I be avoiding Cas?” Dean asks, his voice higher than he wants it to be, “I haven't even—I don't know what he's... I mean, that's just—”

Sam doesn't bother to argue; just stares at him with a judgmental look on his face and waits for Dean to run out of steam. Which he does, far too quickly. He's off his game, and he blames it entirely on the fact that his brain has spent the past few weeks slowly pickling in more testosterone than it's had to deal with in years.

He gives up, crosses his arms defensively over his chest.

“Yeah, okay, fine,” he says with a huff, "I've been avoiding him. We done?"

“What'd he do?" Sam asks, "eat all your licorice? Tape over Dr. Sexy?”

In a lot of ways, Dean knows it would be easier if he just told his brother the truth, but he can't help but drag his feet. It's not that he thinks Sam would react badly. He knows that he won't call him soft, won't tell him he's weak or less of a man like his father would have. He'd probably help. Keep Castiel occupied and away until Dean manages to sort his shit out.

But knowing and doing are two very different things.

“Forget it,” he says.

“Dean.”

He tries to shove past, expecting Sam to do what he normally does and reluctantly step aside, but he doesn't. Apparently, when he wants to be, Sam is made of granite. Dean couldn't move him if he tried. He knows this for a fact, because he's trying pretty damn hard right now and his brother hasn't budged an inch.

“Move, Sam.”

“No.”

“Why the hell not?”

“You're not leaving this room until you tell me what your problem is.”

Dean takes a step back, fixing him with whats meant to be a glare but feels a lot more like a confused frown.

“Why does it sound like you're giving me a time out?”

“I guess because I am," Sam says, lifting his chin.

“I'm thirty-four years old,” Dean points out.

“I don't give a crap. What's going on?”

Dean's mouth falls open, clamps shut, repeats. He does it about three times before he settles on a suitably distracting story.

“I'm gonna start hunting again,” he says.

He likes the sound of the lie as soon as it comes out of his mouth. Maybe it'll be easier if he's busy, out on the road. Sam and Castiel can stay here, man the phones and do the research, and he can call Garth, see if he wants to team up.

“I'm gonna call Garth later,” he tells Sam the moment the idea crosses his mind, “see if he—”

“Garth," Sam says flatly.

"Yeah."

"You're going to start hunting with Garth."

Dean gulps.

"Yeah."

"Voluntarily."

"Yep."

Sam stares at him with narrowed eyes for so long that Dean is ready to launch into a detailed description of all the hypothetical hunting he's going to be doing with Garth, but before he gets a chance Sam shakes his head.

"Nice try. What'd Cas do?”

Dean sighs, defeated, and walks back to one of the cots. Sitting, staring down at his hands, he tries to come up with one good reason why he shouldn't talk to Sam about it. He can't think of one.

“It's not... he didn't do anything."

Cracking his knuckles, Dean thinks about the last few weeks, the last few years. Of every little moment that has driven him here. He knows that as awful as he feels right now, he wouldn't want to have missed them. Castiel has done nothing wrong. He knows that. It's him. His stupid feelings, his stupid heart.

"It's me," he shakes his head, rubbing his hand over his face, "I just...”

He almost told Sam something months ago, before Castiel fell, back after that night at Lucifer's crypt, and now he can't remember what stopped him. Fear, he guesses. It's always fear. But this whole past day he feels like he's been working up to something, and he figures this might as well be it. He sure as hell can't tell Castiel about it, and really, if he can't trust his brother who can he trust?

“The thing, it's like... I'm... I mean I... I think I want to talk about it,” he mumbles, squeezing his fingers anxiously, “I do. But I'm...”

He doesn't even realize he's speaking aloud until Sam closes the door and looks down at him with concern. And there's that look; the patented Sam Winchester Frown of Compassion, and Dean sets his jaw. Heaves out a breath.

“I just don't know if I'm... ready. To talk about it. The, the... you know, about Cas and... and me... and how I, you know... feel. About him,” he says, forcing himself to look up, and hoping that Sam gets it, gets that he's telling him without actually saying the words, and it's a testament to Sam's gigantor brain that he seems to decode Dean's barely coherent rambling.

His eyebrows shoot straight up under his bangs.

“Except I guess I kind of am anyway,” Dean says with a nervous laugh, looking back down at his hands, “please tell me you're getting this, Sammy, because if I have to spell it out...”

“Shit, Dean, I—” Sam stares down at him in shock, “are you saying you're—with Cas?”

“Yeah. I... yeah.”

Dean's arms feel numb, tingly, and he grips the edge of the rough blanket beneath him when he has the sudden and irrational thought that he might float away.

“Dean, I swear I didn't mean to bully you into—”

“I know.”

Letting out a breath, Sam sits down beside him on the cot, rubbing at the scar on his palm with his thumb.

“You're not hallucinating,” Dean tells him, and Sam catches himself, shaking his head guiltily and dropping his hands to his knees.

“Dean, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have pushed you. That really wasn't cool. And if you're not ready to talk about it, that's fine. But you can, okay? Seriously. I don't care. I mean, I care, obviously, but... you know what I mean.”

Sam's looking over at him like he's afraid he's going to bolt, and it's not an unrealistic concern, but Dean figures the worst part is over and he might as well stick around for the free therapy session.

Besides, if he goes out into the hall he's only increasing his chances of running into Castiel.

“It's fine,” he says, though Sam doesn't look entirely convinced, “I, uh... honestly, I almost told you once before, but I chickened out at the last second.”

“Did something happen?” Sam asks, hesitant, and Dean shakes his head.

“No. I'm just... Having him around all the time, it's... it sucks. Not as much as not having him around, obviously, but... you know.”

Sam is clearly lost for what to say, and Dean clears his throat.

“I was serious, by the way,” he says, “about calling Garth.”

“You're gonna take off?”

“I don't know what else to do. I figure you guys can hold down the fort while I'm out there doing the leg work, and this'll still be home, but if I'm not here maybe I can, you know,” he shrugs and feels pathetic when the next words fall out of his mouth, “get over him.”

“How long have you been...” Sam trails off, unsure of what to call it, and Dean huffs out a miserable laugh.

“In love with him?” he asks weakly, the words catching in his throat, “Years.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.”

Sam is silent for a long moment, running a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face. A half smile pulls up on his lips.

“It probably says a lot about you that I'm more surprised that you just voluntarily used the L word than the fact that it's in relation to a dude.”

“Really?” Dean says with a scowl, “you're gonna give me shit about that right now?”

“Sorry, sorry,” Sam says, before a memory flickers visibly over his face, “can I ask you something?”

Dean nods.

“Did you hook up with that Aaron guy?”

“What the fuck?” Dean sputters, and Sam raises his brow, waiting, “no! Jesus, Sam.”

“Huh,” Sam scrunches up his nose, “So is it—”

“Why the hell would you even ask me that?”

“I'm just curious,” Sam says with a shrug, “I mean, is it like, guys in general? Or is it just Cas?”

“You really want to have this conversation?”

“If you're cool with it, yeah. I feel like there's this whole other side of you I don't know, and it's weird not knowing. So.”

Dean deliberates for a moment.

“It's not just Cas,” he says eventually, avoiding eye contact, “there have been other dudes I've been, y'know... interested in. But I haven't actually, uh...”

Dean makes a graphic gesture with his hands and Sam scrunches up his nose.

“Dude, you asked,” Dean says.

“Well, why haven't you?”

Honestly, Dean thought his brother was smarter than this. He gives him a look. Sam just shrugs helplessly.

“Do you remember Dad at all?” Dean says.

Sam's face falls.

“If he'd caught wind...” Dean shudders and shakes his head, “it was always easier to ignore that whole side of things and stick to women.”

At Sam's sad-eyed look, Dean cracks a grin.

“Besides, the list of things trying to maim and kill me has always been long enough without adding pitchfork-wielding villagers to the list.”

It doesn't make Sam's expression any better. If anything, he looks even sadder, and Dean hates it.

“It's no big deal,” he says, which is obviously complete bullshit. Judging by the look on Sam's face, he agrees.

“Just so you know,” Sam says, “I'm not gonna be like Dad was. You meet a guy who's into you? Go for it.”

“Thanks for your blessing,” Dean says, voice thick with sarcasm.

“I'm just trying to be supportive,” Sam says, his expression pinched and irritated, “you don't have to be a dick.”

Looking down at his hands, Dean laughs. This entire conversation feels surreal. He wonders when he's going to wake up.

“Yeah, I know you are, Sammy,” he says, “I appreciate it.”

They're both quiet for a while, and when Sam speaks again all traces of snark have left his voice.

“So hunting with Garth, huh?”

“I guess,” Dean says, and Sam chews at his lip.

“Look, if you think it's the best option I'm not going to try and stop you from leaving, but... what if Cas wants to go with you?”

“I don't know,” Dean shakes his head, “Shit, I don't know."

"He probably would, though,” Sam says carefully, “you know that, right? I mean, he and I are closer than we used to be, but he'll still follow you before he'll stay here with me."

"I guess... I mean, I could tell him I don't want him to come, but then he'd want to know why and I can't just... Shit. There's no way out of this. Fuck. Fuck.”

“Whatever you do, you can't keep avoiding him,” Sam says finally, “he thinks he's done something wrong.”

“I know.”

“It's rough, but you're just... you're gonna have to push past it. He was your best friend first, right? Maybe it's not what you want, but...”

“It's better than nothing,” Dean finishes, “yeah. Yeah, you're right. It'd be easier if we weren't cooped up here, though.”

“Maybe we could find an easy hunt,” Sam says, “take your mind off it with some beheading.”

Glancing sidelong at Sam, Dean laughs.

“You know, I must have missed that step in the self help books.”

“No wonder you're a mess,” Sam smiles, knocking Dean's shoulder with his own, “beheading is the most important step.”

When Dean cracks another smile, Sam gets to his feet.

“You gonna be okay?”

“Yeah. Just... I might hang out in here a while.”

“I'll take care of dinner tonight if you want,” Sam offers.

“You stay the hell out of that kitchen,” Dean tells him, “I might be going out of my mind, but I don't wanna die.”

 

Later that night, Dean lowers the needle on his copy of Abbey Road and stretches out on his bed to read. He's hoping the music and the Vonnegut novel will use up all the mental energy he has, and he'll be able to pretend that he didn't spill his guts to Sam earlier.

It's good, in a way; he feels lighter. But at the same time, saying it aloud made it real. He knows for sure now that he feels this. It's not just delusion or exhaustion or plain old crazy that's making him think he's in love with Castiel. It's real. It's real and it's not stopping.

He's twelve pages in to the book when Paul McCartney starts singing Oh! Darling, and there's a knock at his door. Castiel pushes it open after Dean reluctantly responds, and he's damp-haired, his face still slightly pink from the shower. After all these weeks, he still hasn't listened to Sam or Dean's repeated advice to ease up on the hot water.

Wedged under one arm is a bottle of honey-infused Wild Turkey—presumably purchased when he and Sam had their shopping spree—and he's carrying two full glasses that he holds up in place of asking for an invitation. Dean sits up a little straighter, closing his book on his lap, and Castiel walks in to sit on the edge of his bed, bumping into his feet in the process. He hands Dean the glass without a word, eyes wandering around the room as if cataloging its contents.

It's as Castiel carries out his silent appraisal of the room that Dean suddenly realizes that he's has been in here at some point without him, because he knows for a fact that he didn't loan him the faded Jeff Beck t-shirt he's wearing. That shirt was Dean's only proof that he'd successfully scaled the Marcus Amphitheater fence for the Milwaukee leg of the Jeff Beck/Santana tour back in '95, and he's guarded it with his life ever since.

Apparently Castiel has claimed it for himself without asking.

He'd mind a whole lot more if he didn't get a warm curl of stupidgiddylove in his gut at the sight of Castiel looking so comfortable in his clothes, and even as he screams internally he's smiling like an idiot when Castiel turns to face him. He tries to cover it by lifting the glass to his nose, breathing in the sweet smell.

“What's the occasion?” Dean asks, holding out his glass, and Castiel clinks his own against it before raising it to his lips, pausing to answer before knocking it back in one go.

“It's June 15th.”

Dean assumes the date is meant to mean something to him, but he's coming up all zeros. Castiel, meanwhile, just unscrews the cap of the bottle and waits for Dean to drain his glass. He refills both before he speaks again.

“I've been human for a month today,” he explains, leaning down to put the open bottle on the floor by the bed before pulling his feet up onto the mattress and tucking them beneath him, “it felt like a milestone.”

Simultaneously, Dean feels like it can't possibly have been that long or that short an amount of time, and he regrets not keeping track of the days himself.

“Should have made you a one-month birthday cake.”

“I think I can wait for the customary year.”

“Well, I'll make a note of it. May 15th, bake Cas a cake.”

“I'd prefer caramel pie, I think,” Castiel says into his glass, “though I'm sure I'd enjoy any cake you made.”

He finishes off the drink, lowering the glass to his lap, and he looks so comfortable just sitting there on Dean's bed in the middle of the night that Dean has to look away. From the corner of his eye, he can see Castiel turning his empty glass around in his hands.

The lamplight reflects bright in his eyes, and Dean couldn't be more relieved that he's got a half-full glass to focus on, because it's late, and they're alone, and Castiel is close enough that he can see the still-healing nick on his cheek where he slipped with the razor last week. Close enough that he can smell the vanilla and coconut conditioner in his hair. He smells good. He looks good. Dean wants to touch him. He can't.

He swallows, staring at his drink while he finds his voice, then gulps it all down, letting the liquor burn through the tension.

“Nah, you're right,” he says, trying for casual, “pie's always better. I'll make you birthday pie. We'll stick a candle in it and everything.”

Castiel laughs, leaning forward to pick up the bottle again, and the sound bounces off the walls. Dean's heart swells for it, and all at once he feels like he's drowning, because the moment is so perfect that he aches but it's still not enough.  
Before he can fill Dean's glass again Dean covers it with his hand, knowing that if he has more it'll loosen his tongue.

“Better not,” he says, “gotta look after myself now, remember?”

“Okay.”

Castiel lowers the bottle, screwing the lid back on before he takes the empty glass, fingertips brushing Dean's just as the opening riff of a new song winds through the speakers. Dean pulls his hand back, picking at the cover of the book in his lap.

As the music plays, Castiel is quiet, staring at the turntable. There's a tick in his jaw, like he wants to say something, and for a time Dean just watches him. He's gorgeous in this light. Pulchritudinous, Dean's mind supplies. All tanned skin and day-old stubble, damp hair and bright eyes.

Dean wants nothing more than to reach out and pull Castiel to him; to press him down into the mattress; to lay with him the warm cocoon of blankets and keep him there until morning when they'll wake with legs tangled and hair mussed by sleep and roaming hands. He wants to see him up close in the half-light, feel his breath, his pulse, his fingers, lips—

“What's this song called?” Castiel asks, turning to face him, and Dean's heart stutters in his chest.

If there's still a God pulling the strings upstairs, he's an even bigger dick than Dean previously gave him credit for, because this is beyond absurd. He doesn't want to answer because it feels too much like a confession, but he knows that if he doesn't Castiel will just take it upon himself to find the album cover and read it out loud, and Dean doesn't think he can deal with hearing that particular sentence in Castiel's rough voice.

“I Want You,” he says, voice thick as he drops his gaze back to the book and studiously avoids eye contact, “it's uh... it's called I Want You.”

“Oh,” Castiel nods, chewing on his lip and considering the music, “I like it.”

Of course you fucking do, you've been sent here to ruin my goddamn life.

For a long time, Castiel seems on the verge of saying something else, and Dean can feel his eyes boring into him. He refuses to look back up. The corner of his book is peeling away beneath his fingers.

“Goodnight, Dean,” Castiel says finally, though it sounds more like a question, and he doesn't stand up to leave until Dean says it back.

He closes the door behind himself, and Dean exhales for the first time in what feels like hours, before standing to pull the needle from the record.

Despite not being remotely tired, he strips down to his boxers and crawls miserably into bed. When he stretches out his legs, he can feel a dip in the memory foam where Castiel had been sitting. The blanket is still warm. Dean rolls onto his side and doesn't sleep for hours.

He thinks, and thinks, and thinks, imagining impossible scenarios against his will. Pictures a version of events where Castiel never stood up and left; of him instead turning to Dean, the words I want you still hanging in the air, and crawling across the mattress toward him; another where he did leave but soon comes back, slams through the door and catches Dean standing by the foot of his bed while he'd undressed, kissing him hard and manhandling him down onto the bed. He thinks of long fingers in his hair; of the sharp line of hipbones under his palms.

He craves touch, craves it like he's dying without it, and with every imagined scene that flits through his mind he feels himself becoming more and more restless, his cock growing heavy and full and aching where it's curved up toward the waistband of his shorts.

In the dark of his room, he tosses and turns, stubbornly ignoring the insistent pulse of want between his legs.

In some form of self-torture he's decided to re-brand as self-preservation, he refuses to let himself even begin to entertain the idea of jerking off to the thoughts that swim in his head. The thoughts he can't stop. He has no control over them. His body, though? That is within the realm of things he's in charge of. And it might suck, it might feel damn near impossible, but he can't allow himself to go down that road again.

Sleep, when it does happen, comes on slow, the dark of his room fading until he sees the golden light of a room filled with boxes, overflowing with smooth blue stones. Dust-motes float down through high beams, glitter in the air, and for a split second, there's the scent of vanilla. He sinks, then, down, down, into something warm, tastes honey on his tongue, pressing in, warm fingers in his hair and a pliant body beneath his own, sweat-warm and smooth. Stubble-rough, arching back. His own name, panted, breathed against his collarbone, hot tongue sliding over his throat, his chest, his cock. It's a jumble of touch, of sound, of sensation, and when he wakes with a start in the middle of the night the evidence of his dream is sticky-wet against the front of his boxers.

He peels them off, disgusted with himself as he cleans up, and throws them into the corner of the room.

Though the ache for release has faded, there's a new ache of guilt, of shame, nagging in his chest. He presses his pillow over his face and doesn't sleep again. Early in the morning, as exhaustion saps away at him, Dean stares up at the ceiling and tries to pull himself together.

This life he's been leading in recent weeks, this weirdly domestic space that he's found himself dwelling in, cooking with Castiel at his side, sitting next to him on the couch, the hugs that he still occasionally seeks that Dean can't deny but also can't deal with; it's destroying him.

Something in him is slowly breaking. He isn't sure how much more he can take.

By some miracle, the next morning brings them a hunt.

Sam is already on his laptop when Dean wanders into the kitchen. By the time Dean has settled into a chair with a cup of coffee, Sam is lifting his hands up off the table in what Dean likes to think of as sign language for so get this.

“I found a case,” he says.

I knew it, Dean thinks.

“It's not Crowley or Metatron or anything big,” Sam goes on, moving the laptop to show him, “but check this out.”

Dean leans forward to read. The article on screen is titled Florida Man Bites Alligator; Is Mauled, Arrested and Dean snorts when he sees it, all traces of pre-hunt excitement leaving him in a rush.

“Sam,” he says slowly, “I'm pretty sure this is just another Florida Man thing. Probably just some whackjob out of his mind on pills and humidity.”

He guesses that his brother is just trying to make good on his promise of finding something to distract him, trying to make him feel better, but Sam shakes his head and jabs at the screen.

“Keep reading,” he says, and with low expectations, Dean does.

FLORIDA MAN BITES ALLIGATOR; IS MAULED, ARRESTED  
A construction worker in Fort Myers, Florida is under police guard after his bizarre attack on an alligator lead to a violent retaliation and an unrelated murder charge.

Witnesses say that Hank Randall (pictured above), had been walking alongside the Caloosahatchee River around noon on Wednesday when he leaped into the water and dragged the nine foot alligator out onto the shore—with his teeth.

“The gator was trying to get away,” said witness Janine Stevens, who saw the whole incident, “but the guy just wouldn’t let go.”

The struggle went on for nearly three minutes before the alligator broke free and turned on the man, mauling his leg before returning to the river. Authorities have been unable to track the animal, but based on photographic evidence, experts estimate it’s weight to be around four-hundred pounds.

That wasn’t the end of it. When police arrived on the scene minutes later, they recognized Randall from surveillance footage of a murder which took place at a nearby gas station earlier that day.

Randall remains in hospital in a serious condition and is yet to be questioned.

“See?” Sam says when Dean looks up from the screen, “Sounds like our kind of thing, right?”

“This dude pulled gator out of a river with his teeth,” Dean says in awe and horror, turning the laptop back around, “no shit it’s our kind of thing. Any ideas on what we might be looking at?”

“Not sure,” Sam says, “but no way in hell is this Hank guy human. Take a look at him. He look like he could lift four hundred pounds to you?”

The man in the photo is wiry, like Garth if he were a solid foot shorter, and try as he might, Dean just can't picture him getting one up on a gator without some kind of supernatural assistance.

“Not a chance,” Dean agrees, “what d'ya say we hit the road in half an hour, figure it out when we get there?”

“Sounds good,” Sam agrees, pushing to his feet, and Dean taps on the table before heading to his room to pack.

He's shoving things into his duffel when there's a knock against the door frame, and he turns around to find Castiel pulled to full height with his chin held high.

“Sam told me about the hunt in Florida.”

“Uhuh...”

“I'm coming with you,” he says firmly, and though Dean's still a little reluctant to be around him, let alone bring him out into the line of fire, he knows he can't say no. Not really.

“Better hurry up and pack your shit, then,” he says, and turns back to his bag.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Castiel falter, opening his mouth to say something and then clamping it shut again, as if he'd been expecting Dean to argue about it. Dean looks back at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Sometime today would be good,” he says, and Castiel disappears down the hall.

Within forty-five minutes, the three of them are ready to pile into the Impala, armed with silver and salt and an assortment of books from the Men of Letters' collection. They have no idea what they're up against, but Dean figures at least one of the books will hold something useful, and they'll research on the road. The trunk is overflowing.

While Dean tries to rearrange everything so it fits, Sam and Castiel square off with a round of rock-paper-scissors to decide who gets to ride shotgun.

Sam wins. He makes a show of stretching his legs out while Castiel glowers at him from the back seat.

While they drive, Castiel reads out possible creatures from the pile of books as he finds them. Nothing seems to fit. They decide it's most likely that the construction worker disturbed the bones of something while he was working, but whatever it is remains a mystery.

“We can rule out any kind of lower-class spirits,” Castiel says after a while, squinting at the book in front of him as though it might offer him some further information if he looks at it hard enough, “perhaps he's possessed by a demon.”

Dean glances at him in the rear view.

“Why the hell would a demon pull a gator out of the river?”

“I didn't say it was a sane demon.”

Sam laughs, and Dean pulls a face at him.

“Well, he didn't,” Sam points out.

“We should call Charlie,” Dean suggests a little later, “see if she can dig up the police report on the gas station clerk while we're on the road, maybe get access to the surveillance footage. Might help if we know exactly how he was killed.”

“I already texted her,” Castiel says, flipping through another book.

“You did?”

“She's out at the moment but she said she'd do it when she gets home.”

“Huh. Good thinking.”

Looking in the rear view, Dean catches Castiel's eye, and smiles. The fluttering in his chest when Castiel smiles back is at once fantastic and horrible, and he clears his throat, returning his gaze to the road ahead and ignoring the sad look Sam casts toward him from the passenger seat. Why he ever thought it was a good idea to tell his brother anything is beyond him.

They stop a couple of times for food and bathroom breaks, and each time Castiel challenges Sam to another round of rock-paper-scissors in an attempt to sit up front. He loses every time. By the time they reach Pine Bluff, Arkansas at around half past eight that evening, Castiel is in a foul mood that Dean thinks is hilarious.

“The back seat is too confining,” he complains, stretching out his back as he climbs out of the car.

“You'll just have to beat me at rock-paper-scissors, then,” Sam says, smirking, “or convince Dean to let you drive.”

Digging his duffel out of the trunk, Dean huffs out a laugh.

“Yeah, that's never gonna happen.”

With Castiel glaring at him, and Sam laughing, Dean heads for the motel office. He presses the after hours buzzer. There’s still a full day of driving ahead—fifteen more hours of close quarters in the car—so when the motel clerk comes to the counter Dean pays for three rooms.

It costs a lot more, but he's desperate to have a bit of space for the night.

After eating a disappointing meal in the poorly lit diner opposite the motel, they head back, parting in the hallway, and Dean stretches out on his bed to appreciate the solitude. The coin-operated magic fingers work wonders on his stiff back, and he sleeps deeply, soundly, until he’s woken at six by Castiel pounding on his door.

If it weren’t for the breakfast burrito he holds out, Dean thinks he might actually have clocked him just on principle.

“We're not leaving for another hour,” Dean reminds him, blinking against the harsh light of the motel hallway as he takes his breakfast.

“I know. Can I come in?”

The flip in his stomach is difficult to ignore, but he does. Acting as though he's pissed at Castiel seems to help a little, so he does.

“Why don’t you go annoy Sam instead?”

Castiel rolls his eyes as if it’s a stupid question. Maybe it is. With a heavy sigh, Dean steps aside, and Castiel makes his way in, looking around the room with interest despite the fact that it is completely identical to his own.

“Charlie sent me the police report last night,” he says when he finally looks back at Dean.

Sinking down onto the edge of his bed, Dean unwraps the burrito and takes a huge bite. Damn, he thinks, whoever decided to wrap bacon and egg in a tortilla should be fucking sainted. He grins around his second bite, waving one hand for Castiel to continue.

“The gas station clerk was eviscerated.”

The mouthful is suddenly not so delicious.

“The report said his stomach was ripped open,” Castiel goes on, sitting down at the small table, the chair turned out to face Dean, “Internal organs shredded was the exact phrase they used. Apparently there was viscera on the beef jerky display.”

Dean grimaces, wishing he had something to get the greasy taste of burrito out of his mouth.

“Awesome.”

“I don’t see how,” Castiel frowns.

Shaking his head, Dean stands up, holding the burrito out.

“You want the rest of this?”

“I already ate.”

“When?”

Castiel checks the time.

“An hour ago.”

“You’ve been up since five?”

“No. I ate at five.”

“You were up before five?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Castiel admits with a shrug, hands absently drumming over his knees, “This motel smells odd, and I was thinking about the viscera. It’s unpleasant.”

Dean just stares at him, at a loss as he often is when it comes to Castiel, and eventually lets out a sigh.

“Yeah it is,” he agrees, dumping the rest of the burrito in the trash, his appetite well and truly ruined, “you wanna see if Sam’s up? We’ve still got like fifteen hours on the road. Might as well get an early start.”

 

As much as Dean hates to admit it, sometimes Sam's love of modern technology comes in handy.

Right now, for instance, as they drive through the middle of nowhere with another three hours of nothing until they arrive at their destination, he’s tapping away at his phone, finding them a decent place to stay and booking ahead.

Castiel, meanwhile, has another pile of books spread open on the back seat. When they finally pass the sign welcoming them to Fort Myers, he seems relatively certain that what they’re dealing with is something called a Malfi.

“It's the spirit of a raptor,” he explains, reading intently, and Sam twists around to look at him from the passenger seat, his hair flapping around in the breeze from the open window.

“A dinosaur ghost?” Dean says, scrunching up his face, and Sam makes a pfft sound at him.

“A raptor is a bird of prey,” he explains in his Dean-is-an-idiot voice, “like a falcon, or an owl.”

“A bird?” Dean repeats, “that makes less sense than a dinosaur.”

“Technically, birds are dinosaurs,” Castiel says, not looking up, “but the Malfi specifically were massive eagles that acted as hunting companions to one of the old gods.”

Wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand—his body does not agree with Florida's humidity at all—Dean glances back at him in the mirror.

“So what makes you think that's what this guy is?”

“This says that a person possessed by a Malfi will take on the attributes of a bird of prey,” Castiel says, “and Randall eviscerated his first victim, then tried to shake an alligator to death. That's definitely birdlike.”

Sam nods in agreement as if he's some kind of expert on the feeding habits of eagles, and Castiel continues.

“The Malfi will only take possession of a human if it's place of rest is disturbed, so it's possible that this construction worker unwittingly dug into it's grave.”

“Well alright.”

“The most telling sign is the smell,” he says, reading from the book, “regardless of the possessed person's cleanliness, the pungent smell which follows them has been likened to a chicken coop.”

“Sounds delightful,” Dean says, “How do we exorcise it?”

“You can sever the connection between the spirit and the human host with a brief ritual during which you anoint the forehead with a specially made poison.”

“You think we’ll be able to make it?” Sam asks.

“It shouldn’t be a problem,” Castiel tells him, handing the book over for Sam to see, “the ingredients are quite common, and he doesn't actually have to ingest it.”

Rolling into the parking lot of the Rivers Edge Motel, Dean yawns widely.

“Well, I'll start with the witness from the article in the morning, see if she noticed anything else,” he says, shutting off the car.

“What about us?” Castiel asks.

Climbing out and stretching his long limbs, Sam rolls his neck from side to side.

“We can take care of the poison,” he says, wriggling the book for emphasis, “and once we're sure we're dealing with a Malfi we can head over to the hospital. We'll probably need to fed up—there'll be cops guarding him.”

As they head for the office to grab their room key—they're all sharing, tonight—Dean yawns again.

“In the meantime,” he says, pressing the buzzer, “I'm gonna be as unconscious as possible.”

 

Janine Stevens is a plump woman of forty-four, and she opens her door as far as the chain allows, staring out at them in suspicion.

Dean is already in a bad mood. He'd woken to the sound of the motel door closing, and when he sat up he found Castiel standing in the doorway to the bathroom with sleep-ruffled hair and his toothbrush hanging out of his mouth. Apparently Sam had wanted to get an early start on finding the herbs, and Castiel wasn't ready fast enough. Castiel seems pretty happy about this turn of events that has left him with Dean for the morning. Dean, on the other hand, is annoyed with Sam for leaving the two of them alone when that's the complete opposite of what he'd wanted out of a hunt.

“Can I help you?” Mrs Stevens asks through the gap in the door, and Dean flashes a fake smile and an even faker laminated ID.

“Hi, Mrs Stevens, I'm Tom, this is...” Dean glances over at Castiel, “Jerry. We're rangers with the park service.”

“Your names are Tom and Jerry?” Mrs Stevens asks, dubious, and Dean grimaces.

“Unfortunately,” he says without humor, as if he's tired of people pointing it out, “we're uh, investigating the incident at Caloosahatchee River. We won't take up much of your time.”

Frowning, Mrs Stevens closes the door, pulling the chain loose before opening it wide.

“Well, come on then,” she says, waving them in.

Mrs Stevens leads them into her cramped kitchen, gesturing for them to take a seat at the table as she sits down on the other side.

“You said in your interview with the press that the gator was trying to get away,” Dean says, flipping open a notebook, and Mrs Stevens nods, “are you sure it wasn't attacking—”

“I'm sure,” she cuts him off, leaning back to take her phone from the counter behind her, “I can show you.”

“You have video?” Dean asks, “I'm surprised it's not all over the Internet by now.”

“I can't work out how to download it,” she says, pulling a face as she tries to get the gallery to open, and Dean almost wishes Sam had decided to interview her just so he'd have to restrain himself from correcting her with you mean upload.

The video starts playing, and she turns it around to show them.

It's grainy footage, showing a couple of kids running across a grassy slope beside the river at first, and they see Randall in the background. He's walking, his movements a little stiff and jarring, and he disappears from view for a moment while the camera follows the two kids. They move in front of him again just as he stops by the rivers edge, head turning sharply to the side as he catches sight of something in the water, and in a swift and sudden movement he's diving in.

He crashes into the water. 

The kids flinch back from the spray moments before he emerges, dragging the gator from the water by it's leg, his teeth clamped down around it, and Mrs Stevens' voice is loud on the recording, shouting for the kids to get back. The footage becomes shaky, a little off center, but they can still see the struggle as Randall holds the gator in his jaw, hands slashing wildly at it's abdomen as if trying to tear at it. When he finally loses his grip, the gator drops, whipping around and closing its mouth around Randall’s calf. It yanks his feet out from under him.

Anything else that happens is cut off by the phone being dropped and subsequently switched off when Mrs Stevens picks it back up.

“See?” she says, pulling the phone back, “the guy was nuts.”

“Did you notice if he smelled like chickens?” Castiel asks, flat out.

Dean looks over at him with his mouth half open, because really?

“Chickens?” Mrs Stevens asks, looking from Castiel to Dean and back again, “why would he smell like chickens?”  
“People have, uh... been known to throw chickens into the river. To taunt gators,” Dean says quickly, before Castiel can respond, “we're just covering all bases.”

“Oh,” she says, not looking entirely convinced, “well, no? At least, I don't think so. But I didn't get very close to him.”

Smiling tightly, Dean gets to his feet, eager to leave before Castiel asks any more questions that will make them seem more suspicious.

“You've been a great help,” he tells Mrs Stevens, “thanks for your time.”

 

When they pick up Sam, he's carrying a plastic bag of supplies and biting into an apple the size and color of the Hulk's fist.

“Now it makes sense,” Dean says to him as he climbs into the back, “you just wanted to go to the farmers market.”

Sam doesn't deny it. Just digs into the bag and pulls out another apple, offering it to Castiel, who takes it with a smile of thanks.

“What did Mrs Stevens have to say?” Sam asks, and takes another bite, crunching loudly.

“Ask Columbo over here,” Dean says, pulling out of the parking space and heading back toward the motel, “he's got his interview skills down pat.”

“She said he didn't smell like chickens,” Castiel tells Sam, ignoring Dean's sarcastic tone, “though she wasn't close enough to know for certain.”

“Huh,” Sam says, “we still thinking Malfi?”

“I'm fairly confident, yes,” Castiel says, “she had video footage of Randall attacking the alligator, and his gait was somewhat birdlike.”

“What do you mean, birdlike?”

“He appeared to strut,” Castiel says without humor.

“So, you're saying you can tell by the way he uses his walk?” Dean asks, and Sam snorts. Castiel squints at him from the passenger seat.

“What?”

“He's a woman's man,” Dean tells him, and Castiel's eyes narrow further, “no time to talk.”

“Dean, if you don't have anything to add other than lyrics to disco music—”

“How do you even know that?”

“—then I suggest you be quiet and pay attention to the road.”

Sam's guffaw is loud, and Dean looks over at Castiel with a raised brow. He looks so damn pleased with himself for catching the reference that Dean can't help but laugh. He shakes his head, looking back at the road.

It doesn't take long to get back to the motel, and while Dean and Castiel change into their fed suits, Sam prepares the poison.

It's a simple mix of dried holly berries, apple seeds, yew leaves and salt, crushed together into a paste with flax-seed oil, and when it's done Sam scrapes it into a Ziploc bag. Castiel takes it, slipping it into his pocket.

Adjusting his tie, Dean eyes the still mostly full plastic bag on the motel table.

“What's all that for, then?” he asks, pointing toward the overflowing fruit.

“Snacks,” Sam says, and disappears into the bathroom before Dean has a chance to make fun of him.

 

As they expected, there are police at the door to Randall's hospital room. Sam flashes his badge first, introducing them as agents investigating a potential link with another homicide out of state.

“Is he awake?” Dean asks, and the shorter cop—Officer Norton—nods, tucking a loose curl of dark hair behind her ear.

“Not that it'll do you much good,” she adds, “whenever he actually talks he's just rambling nonsense. That's the only reason we haven't taken him down to the station yet—waiting on a psych eval.”

“We'd still like to talk to him, if that's alright?”

Shrugging, Officer Norton pushes open the door.

“Knock yourselves out,” she says, “just don't get too close. He bites.”

Together, the three of them step into the small room to find Randall laying cuffed to his hospital bed. He's staring at the wall as if it's the most fascinating thing he's ever seen. Once the door clicks shut behind them, Castiel fishes the Ziploc bag from his pocket. Sam sniffs.

“It stinks like disinfectant in here,” he says, glancing at Castiel, “you think it's just covered the smell?”

“It's possible,” Castiel says.

Their voices snap Randall out of his stupor, and he looks over at them sharply, tilting his head before baring his teeth and hissing at them.

“At least he's already restrained,” Dean says, watching him warily, “should make this easier.”

As if challenging Dean's words, Randall thrashes, straining against the cuffs that hold him in place. They dig into his wrists, leaving red marks in his skin.

“Hmm, that's what I thought,” he says suddenly in a low rasp, elongating his words, “all of them, buckled like cans.”

“Right,” Dean says.

“Dean,” Castiel says, ignoring Randall and opening the bag, scooping out some of the paste with his fingers, “can you hold his head still?”

If Dean's being honest, putting his hands anywhere near this guys face is the last thing he wants to do, especially after Officer Norton's comment about the biting. Still, he nods, making his way to the other side of the bed. Randall snaps at him when his hands get close, and Dean flicks him in the forehead in retaliation. Castiel sends him a disapproving look.  
“He started it,” Dean says, holding Randall's head in place, and Castiel rolls his eyes.

“Seventeen years in the future,” Randall spits, struggling in Dean's grip.

“Sure thing, buddy,” Dean replies.

Carefully, with the kind of focus and intensity that still sets him apart from humanity, Castiel smears the paste onto Randall’s forehead in a counter clockwise circle before drawing a line through it's center, straight down to the bridge of his nose.

“Abrumperet vincula,” he intones, “spiritus redeat ad requiem tuam.”

Randall growls. Nothing happens. Castiel frowns and draws the circle again.

“Spiritus redeat ad requiem tuam,” he repeats, a little more firmly.

Looking around the room, Dean checks for any sign that something is happening; the usual flicker of lights, a rumbling in the walls, a curl of smoke or fog or cold air. There's nothing.

“Uh, guys?” Sam is by the foot of the bed, a hospital clipboard in his hands and a furrow in his brow, “Randall's chart says he tested positive for mephedrone and PCP when they brought him in.”

“What?” Dean asks, still holding Randall in place.

“I don't think he's possessed,” Sam says, looking up at him, “he just took a bunch of drugs and went all—”

“Florida Man,” Dean says, releasing his hold.

“It would appear that way,” Castiel agrees, staring down at Randall with a pinched expression, “the ritual would have had some effect by now if he were Malfi.”

Looking back at the squirming man, Dean sighs.

“You'd better wipe all that crap off his forehead before we go,” he tells Castiel, grabbing hold of Randall's face again, and once he has they slip out of the room.

“Any luck?” Officer Norton asks, and Sam shakes his head.

“Don't think he's our guy,” he tells her.

They slip out of the hospital quickly, and head back to the motel to pack up. It's a long drive back to Kansas.

 

They've been back at the bunker a couple of hours when Dean makes his way to the TV room. He never got around to watching Back to the Future last week. His downtime is nothing without Marty McFly.

Naturally, his plans are thwarted again when he walks through the door to find Castiel on his yoga mat, slowly descending from a shoulder stand into what the bony instructor onscreen refers to as halasana pose. He stands in the doorway gaping while his upstairs brain redirects all traffic to the basement.

Suddenly he has absolutely no idea what he even came into the room for, because Castiel is bent double with his toes touching the floor behind his head, hands clasped together and arms stretched flat, a narrow strip of smooth, tanned skin appearing between the waistband of his loose pants and his pale gray t-shirt, and as far as Dean can remember there isn't actually anything else going on in the world right now.

The bunker could be on fire and he's pretty sure he'd have forgotten about it. Hell, maybe it is. It'd explain why he's so damn hot all of a sudden.

Castiel lets out a slow breath, stretching his arms impossibly further. Dean isn't even sure that Lisa could do that, and her flexibility could give Gumby a run for his money. He's tilting his head to the side, chewing on his lower lip as he tries to figure out how exactly Castiel is managing to bend that far, when Castiel's eyes flick up to meet his, and he honest to God winks.

Mortified, Dean turns to leave just as Castiel shifts back into the shoulder stand. He bumps into the door frame and keeps going, ignoring the voice that echoes out after him, asking if he wants to join in. He feels like he's being mocked. He tells himself that's crazy.

Still, with absolutely no desire to stay inside the bunker where he might be ambushed at any moment, he heads outside to work on the Impala. There's not much to do, but he takes his time, replacing all the spark plugs before giving her an oil change and a thorough wash and polish. His baby's paint job hasn't shone this bright since she rolled off the line in 1967.  
He's finished too quick, and turns his attention to the Sierra.

She isn't quite so easy on the eyes, but he still does what he can, tuning her up and washing the windows until the smudges that blurred them are gone. He's emptying all the old bulbs from the glove compartment into a garbage bag when Sam comes outside to see if he wants a soda, and when he says yes he's expecting his brother to toss it to him right away.

Instead, Sam says, “Cas'll bring it out,” before heading back inside.

“Dammit,” he groans, leaning his head against his forearm where it rests on the door, and he's still there when Castiel comes outside.

“Is it up to your standards yet?” Castiel asks him, and Dean accepts the soda being held out with a tight smile.

“Nowhere near. But it won't blow up on you, so that's something.”

“Good,” Castiel says, touching the hood as if the hideous hunk of metal is something precious, “I like it.”

“Seriously?”

“I think it's got character.”

“Sure, if by character you mean rust. Then it's got plenty.”

“If you continue to insult my car I won't let you ride shotgun,” Castiel tells him, and Dean snorts.

“Cas, buddy, if riding shotgun in this piece of crap is supposed to be incentive, I'm sorry, but you're gonna be going on some lonely drives.”

For a long moment, Castiel considers him.

“Fine,” he says, flatly.

“Fine?”

“Yes,” Castiel holds out his hand, “Could I have my keys?”

Dean looks at his hand with suspicion.

“What for?”

“I'm going on a lonely drive now.”

“Where to?”

“That's none of your concern.”

“Like hell it isn't.”

“Keys, Dean.”

Frowning, Dean hands them over and Castiel nudges him out of the way, climbing into the car. Dean holds the door, stopping him from closing it.

“Seriously, Cas. Where are you going?”

“You could get in and find out.”

Dean wants to get into the car even less than he'd wanted to hold Hank Randall's head still, but Castiel has his holy warrior face on and Dean knows he isn't going to budge. And there's no way in hell he's letting him go off on his own. Not with Metatron fixated on him.

Reluctantly, he heads around the the other side and climbs in, fixing Castiel with a look to tell him how much he doesn't want to. Castiel ignores it.

They've been driving in silence for almost ten minutes when they stop at an intersection. Castiel looks both ways but doesn't move out onto the clear road. Dean side-eyes him.

“Cas?”

“Yes?”

“You have no idea where you're going, do you?”

Castiel opens his mouth to respond, thinks better of it, and purses his lips.

“No,” he admits.

“You were bluffing.”

“Perhaps.”

“Why?”

There's a long, uncomfortable pause while Castiel seems to deliberate saying anything, and then he comes to a decision. He turns in his seat to look at Dean.

“You've been avoiding me.”

Crap, Dean thinks. He knew he shouldn't have asked.

“No, I haven’t,” he says.

The denial sounds even weaker than he'd expected it to.

“You have,” Castiel insists, “You've been distant since you got back from Illinois, and actively avoiding me since we played basketball.”

“I spent the entire morning with you in Fort Meyers,” Dean points out, and Castiel raises an eyebrow.

“Under sufferance,” he says, “you made a point of mentioning more than once that you wished I'd been working with Sam instead.”

Staring at Castiel, Dean struggles to find a way to respond. Because he's right, and Dean has no excuse.

“I didn't... I mean,” Dean heaves out a breath, “I'm just kind of tired, is all. It's nothing to do with you.”

“You've been fine with Sam,” Castiel says, “so obviously it is to do with me.”

Dean has nothing he can say to that, so he says nothing. The silence drags on. Behind them, an impatient driver honks their horn, and with a heavy sigh Castiel pulls away from the intersection. He doesn't speak again until they're slowing to a stop, back outside the bunker.

“Whatever the problem is,” Castiel says carefully as he shuts off the engine, staring down at where his hands rest on the steering wheel, “if I have hurt you, or offended you, I am sorry. But I want you to know that I still consider you my closest friend. You will always be my closest friend.”

It's as he's climbing out the door that he pauses, and his words make Dean's insides feel cold and solid as rocks.  
“That will never change.”

He walks away, then, heading for the greenhouse, and once he's out of sight Dean climbs from the car and goes inside. Castiel's words follow him like restless ghosts.

“I think he knows,” Dean says a couple of minutes later, letting himself into Sam's room and shutting the door.

Sam, sitting at his desk, turns around in his chair.

“What?”

“Cas.”

“Yeah, I got that much. What the hell do you mean he knows?”

Moving to sit on the edge of Sam's bed, Dean brings his hands up to cover his face, pressing his eyes shut and shaking his head.

“We went for a drive just now,” he says, dropping his hands away, and Sam raises his brow, “he tricked me into going for a drive and started asking all these questions about why I'd been avoiding him.”

“How does that make you think he knows?"

“He said...” Dean exhales, low, and shakes his head again, unable to say the words out loud because he knows he'll sound like a middleschool kid with a crush.

“What did he say?”

“That things will never change between us.”

Sam's face crumples a little, and Dean stares down at his hands.

“I mean, I never thought things would, but...”

“Dean,” Sam says quietly, “I don't think he knows. You're being paranoid.”

“That wasn't all.”

“Then what else?”

“This is embarrassing.”

“Well lucky for you, this years judgment quota got filled when you broke my laptop with cartoon porn.”

Dean smirks, and Sam rolls his eyes. Somehow it bolsters him enough to go on.

“Just... earlier. It was like... he was making fun of me.”

“Even if he did know, do you really think he'd do that?”

Logically, Dean knows Sam is right. But at the same time he has that horrible, slithering cold feeling in his stomach, and it's about as easy to ignore as Cthulhu.

“It was like innuendo kind of?” he says.

“Innuendo,” Sam repeats doubtfully, “this is the guy who didn't understand why the pizza guy was spanking the babysitter, Dean.”

“Yeah, but I walked in on him doing yoga, and, uh...” Dean feels his neck growing hot, and he clears his throat, “he was all, you know, human pretzeled.”

He twists his hands around in the air in some vague approximation of a yoga pose.

“And I was watching him or whatever.”

“Pervert,” Sam laughs, and Dean glares at him, “sorry, sorry. Go on.”

“Anyway, he looked up when he noticed I was there, and he winked. Seriously winked at me, and then he was all--" Dean drops his voice to an approximation of Castiel's, "care to join me?”

Dean spreads his palms out in the universal gesture for what the hell? Sam is oddly silent. For a moment, Dean worries that Sam is judging him after all, that maybe it was a mistake to tell him anything.

“He has no idea,” Sam says, finally, and he sounds so decisive that Dean shakes his head.

“You couldn't possibly know that, Sam.”

“No, Dean. I'm serious. He has no idea.”

Dean looks up at him. Sam's eyes are fixed on some point on the wall behind Dean, and his jaw is twitching the way it does when he's holding something back.

“Sam.”

Sam's chewing on the inside of his cheek, and his eyes keep narrowing like he's weighing his words carefully.

“Okay,” he says, “don't... don't freak out or anything. But he, uh... he asked me for some advice.”

“What advice?”

“That day we went to Grand Island?” Sam says, his voice going up at the end like he's asking if Dean remembers, and Dean nods, “I left him at the yoga place while I went to get my laptop fixed, and we met up after.”

“Yeah...”

“So we were in the food court, and out of nowhere he asked what the proper way was to let someone know you were interested in them. He was being all cagey about who it was, but I figured it must have been someone he'd met at yoga, right—because who else could it be?”

Sam raises his eyebrows, apparently waiting for Dean to agree with him that such a conclusion was only logical, but Dean isn't entirely sure his soul is still fully inside his body, so he doesn't bother with a response. After a second, Sam clears his throat and continues.

“Anyway. I didn't really know what to tell him beyond the obvious, you know, laugh at their lame jokes, buy them a drink, find out what music they're into and go dancing kind of stuff... But then... because of where I thought he'd met them, I said... uh...” Sam grimaces, as though the next sentence is too horrible to even consider repeating, “I told him, if all else fails you could just give them a wink and ask them to join you for a yoga session.”

Sam leans away from Dean as if he's anticipating getting punched. Dean's too busy trying to claw his way back to reality to even think about knocking out his brother. His knuckles are white, fingers digging into the mattress.

“I didn't think he'd actually do it,” Sam says, a little desperately.

Dean still doesn't reply. Breathe, he tells himself, breathing is good.

“Dean?”

His eyes snap up and he closes his mouth. He hadn't even noticed it was open.

“Are you...” he blinks about fifteen times in five seconds, trying to figure out what he's supposed to do with this information, and eventually Sam comes back into focus, “you're not messing with me are you?”

“Do you honestly think I'd make any of that up?”

“No. No, I just. He's... he did all of that, except the dancing. He—he bought me a drink. And the music, thing... he—why didn't you tell me?”

“He asked me not to. I figured he thought you'd make fun of him or something. And because, you know—” Sam wriggles his hand toward Dean, “I didn't want to hurt you, so...”

Dean stares, blinks, breathes. Mostly breathes. When he remembers it's a thing he needs to do, he does it. It's a work in progress.

“Dean?”

Sam's watching him warily, and Dean doesn't know if he wants to thank him or knock him out for inadvertently causing 90% of what he's been dealing with lately. Somehow, though, when he manages to speak, he ends up asking for the same advice that Castiel did.

“What, what... what do I do?” he asks, and Sam just shakes his head helplessly.

“You're asking me? If I were any good at giving advice we wouldn't even be having this conversation.”

“Good point.”

“This is insane,” Sam mutters to himself, and shakes his head when Dean shoots him a look, “no, I mean... I just don't know how I didn't see this before. With all the staring. And no wonder he's constantly hugging you and oh God—”

Sam stops talking, and the look of pity he's giving Dean is painful.

“I should have known. Shit, Dean, I'm sorry.”

Dean stares down at his knees for a long moment and nods to himself.

“I'm going to talk to him,” he says, before he's fully aware of having made a decision, and Sam looks over at him with surprise.

“Right now?”

“No time like the present, right?” Dean asks, voice a little high, and Sam nods, following him as he stands and walks to the door, “Okay. Good. I'll... I'll... fuck I don't even know,” he's wide eyed, panicked, “wish me luck, I guess?”

Sam claps him on the shoulder.

“I'll be in the kitchen,” Sam says quietly, “give you guys some space, 'kay?”

Dean nods. For too long, he stands in the hallway opening and closing his hands and staring at the floor, trying to come up with some sort of plan. Any plan at all.

Barely ten minutes later, he finds himself walking through the kitchen door, and Sam looks up at him in confusion.

“Did you already—?”

“Not yet.”

Dean crosses the room, filling a glass with water and draining it twice before he turns around to face his brother.

“I'm gonna bring him a drink,” he says, wiping the water from his lips, “that's... I was trying to think of a reason to go out there so it's not like... that makes sense, right? I mean, it gets hot in the greenhouse, so he's probably thirsty, right?”

“Yeah, probably,” Sam says, barely hiding his amusement at Dean's flustered state, and if Dean weren't so preoccupied he'd probably be irritated by it.

As it is, he's just grateful that Sam seems happy about this turn of events.

Dean wipes his shaky hands on the front of his jeans before filling a glass with cold water from the bottle in the fridge. He walks purposefully out of the kitchen without another word, and Sam watches him go, the grin splitting wide over his face.

It's a couple of minutes before Dean walks into the greenhouse carrying the glass of water, condensation beading on the sides. As the door clicks shut behind him, Castiel glances over from where he's standing by the herb shelf. He tenses when he sees who it is.

Dean holds the water up like a peace offering.

“Hey,” he says, and Castiel crosses the room to meet him.

Dean watches him approach with wide eyes. When he sees the furrow forming in the space between Castiel's eyebrows he knows he must look terrified.

“What's the matter?”

“Nothing,” Dean manages, offering the glass, “it's hot out here. Thought you might be thirsty.”

Castiel squints at him, but there's the twitch of a smile at the edges of his mouth, and he takes the glass. He drinks half, then notices the way Dean is staring at him. He offers it back and Dean takes it gratefully, draining the rest in seconds. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and puts the glass down on the work bench. His hands are shaking and he nearly fumbles it. Jesus Christ, keep it together, he thinks. He's silent for too long, and Castiel is getting uneasy.

"You're acting strange," he says, looking warily toward the door, "Where's Sam?"

Dean shakes his head.

“Inside. He's... forget about Sam. I, uh... look.”

Bite the bullet, he thinks.

“I just wanted to tell you, uh,” Dean swallows again and looks up to meet Castiel's eyes, “you were right. I was avoiding you.”

Castiel looks hurt, and Dean scrambles to explain.

“But it's not... you didn't do anything. It's just because you're, uh... I mean, I'm...”

This is ridiculous, he tells himself, just fucking spit it out.

“You remember when I said I needed you?” he says, and Castiel's nod is barely perceptible, but it's there, so Dean keeps going, “I meant it. I did. But I, um... meant more than that.”

Dean closes his eyes, tilting his head up to the roof and wondering how it has worked out that he can stare down death with no problem but the second he has to talk about something that matters he clams up like a fucking moron. He pushes out a breath and looks back at Castiel, who's staring at him with an unreadable expression.

“I'm yours,” Dean blurts out, and he's pretty damn sure that's not what he was planning to say, but it's what came out, and judging by the feeling in his stomach and the look that's spreading over Castiel's face, he's positive that nothing else would be as accurate. He ducks his head, barely able to keep from laughing at himself. “If you want? Sorry.”

In the time it takes Dean to blink, Castiel has stepped forward, and when Dean opens his eyes he's right there. His eyes are searching, asking something that looks a whole lot like permission, and since Dean's voice has stopped working he leans in to answer the only way he can.

Castiel stutters out a breath as Dean's mouth closes over his, and their lips slot together, slow and sure. It's gentler than Dean had imagined it would be. A soft press, not hesitant—not by a long shot—but it's unhurried, soothing, and any sense of trepidation that he had before leaves in a wave.

Castiel's hands settle loosely at his waist, fingers curling in the cotton of his shirt, pulling him closer, skittering up over his sides like he doesn't quite know what to do with them, and he doesn't, he doesn't, and in the warmth of the greenhouse, he clutches at Dean's shoulders like he's holding on for life. He lets out a sound, low and breathless against Dean's mouth, and Dean runs his thumbs along the line of his jaw, feels the soft curl of hair behind his ears as he pulls away to lean their foreheads together.

“Me too," Castiel tells him, his voice unfolding quiet in the space between them, “I'm yours, too.”

With his pulse racing, Dean smiles widely, feeling like maybe the floor is going to drop out from underneath him but not minding in the slightest. 

When they kiss a second time, Castiel is the one to start it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: brief mention of drug use by non-canon character in this chapter.


End file.
